7. How to Create Engaging Instagram Content for Your Podcast

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Welcome back to podcasting for business owners. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast

Laura: Welcome to podcasting for business owners. I’m your host, Laura McRae, a podcast consultant, educator, and self confessed podcast nerd. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast or want to grow the one you have, you’re in the right place. Hold on to your headphones and let’s go. Welcome back to podcasting for business owners. Today I have a special guest for you, Jenna Warrina. Jenna is a marketing coach, social media management agency owner, and the host of the Shiny New Clients podcast. She’s a pro at helping service based business owners look amazing on Instagram and turn followers into clients with her magic marketing machine programme. Today, Jenna is sharing her unique and entertaining approach to marketing her podcast on Instagram. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this episode. Jenner’s insights are, uh, game changers. And if you’re looking to up your Instagram game and grow your podcast audience, this is the episode for you. So get ready for some fantastic tips and a lot of inspiration.

Jenna Warriner has an entertaining approach to marketing her podcast on Instagram

I’m delighted to have Jenna Warriner with us today. Jenna’s a marketing coach, social media management agency owner, and the host of the Shiny New Clients podcast. Through her programme called Magic Marketing Machine, she helps service based business owners use her proven marketing formula to look amazing on Instagram, run their accounts in 15 minutes a day, and turn their followers into clients. Jenna has an entertaining approach to marketing her podcast on Instagram. I personally love it and I often direct my clients to go follow her for inspiration. She’s kindly agreed to come on the show today to tell us how she does it. Hello, Jenna, and welcome to the show. Hi.

Jenna Warrina: Happy to be here.

Laura: Thank you so much. I’ve been so looking forward to having you on the show. I absolutely love how you promote your podcast on your Instagram account. It’s like no other person does it. It’s. You’re just very unique and I love it.

What inspired you to start your podcast showing your new clients

What inspired you to start your podcast showing your new clients?

Jenna Warrina: You know, I’d been told for a long time to start a podcast and I was resisting it. And I don’t know why. Like, I don’t know why I was holding off, but, you know, was looking for other marketing avenues. I have email marketing, I’ve got social media. I’m like, what else can I add to this? How else can I get people into my universe? By sharing my knowledge. And I thought I’d take a risk. You know, it was kind of a low barrier to entry because at first I thought that it was going to be so hard. Like, there’d be all these puzzle pieces to put together. But then as soon as I knew about descript and grabbing a blue yeti microphone for $100 on sale when I was like in a hotel room one night, then I was like, okay, well, I suppose I have what I need. Like, I don’t need to make this fancy to start, I can just start. And I was on a road trip, so while my husband was driving, I just like pulled up a document and started writing down all these episodes ideas. And then I started realising that, like, my programme can only give so much, right? Like, I give so much marketing goodness to my clients. But then there’s other stuff I want to help with and I can help with, like, all of the things about how to scale your business and the mindset around having a business and, you know, marketing psychology and sales psychology and all of these special guests that I could have on so that I could help people grow their business on topics that I don’t cover when I teach. And so then it became this like supplemental tool that helps grow my programme, but also gives tremendously. I think a lot of the stuff that I choose to share could be paid content. Like, it’s stuff that people pay to learn elsewhere.

Laura: Yeah, it’s an amazing podcast and it’s one of my favourites. I love that you keep them short. They certainly fit into my day. And if I miss an episode, I just binge three in one go. And it’s such a great podcast. And what I love about it as well, the way you promote it on instagram, I can’t remember exactly what the post was that you had, but you said, comment lemonade and I’ll send you the link to my podcast episode. And in the post, it didn’t make any sense. Why is she talking about Lemonade? But then, um, when you listen to the podcast episode and you’re talking about the business owner setting up a lemonade stand, it all made sense. So I think it’s really clever way that you market your podcast in that way.

You talk about creating content that entertains your audience

So can you tell us how you come up with those amazing ideas that are so different? You don’t just put an audiogram up there and say, next episode you go a little bit more in depth? Yeah, absolutely.

Jenna Warrina: Well, firstly, one of the social media management clients in my agency, who I’d written content for, for many years, was a podcast manager herself. And so I was able to go to her and kind of tell her my idea. Uh, and so we like, you know, went back and forth a bit and she told me some ideas and I know that from writing her content. We’ve written a lot about how the, like, we would say the audiogram is dead and trying to, like, stay ahead of the curve in the podcast management space. I was already aware that that was not the only way or necessarily the best way to promote episodes. You know, it has its place, I’m

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Jenna Warrina: sure. But if I then cross reference with how I teach my clients to create content around their businesses, we talk about creating content that entertains your audience. And entertaining doesn’t need to be goofy and silly like I often am online. Like, documentaries also entertain us. The news also entertains us. Sad stories entertain us. So if we look at this like our content, like it’s supposed to entertain our audience, even when we’re selling to them, then we’re m more likely to get traction on social media and get people’s attention in general and make them want to come listen to us on another platform. Right? So I’ve always looked at my promo. I rarely make a post that’s like, here’s my podcast, go listen to it. It’s always giving some sort of value and entertaining the audience and then saying, if you want more, here’s my podcast, go listen to it.

Laura: Yeah, there was a post you did recently where you were just giving a tip, and then you said, oh, and by the way, if you want to learn more about this, you should cheque out my episode, blah, blah, blah. And then you just carried on with what you were saying, and it’s just a great way to just add it in there subconsciously.

Jenna Warrina: Another way that I think of ideas is my friend Molly, who’s the host of demystify magic, the podcast. Her and I are in each other’s DM’s constantly, every time we have a good idea. And Molly started doing this tactic where she would do that, the aside. So she’d be talking about one thing, and like, halfway to three quarters of the way through her Instagram reel, she would say, I just talked about this on my podcast. And she would put a, uh, sticker on the screen of like, the title of the episode and then go back to what she was doing. And we got that because we saw someone else do it and we shared it in our DM’s to each other. Like, you know, a rising tide lifts all ships. Her getting listeners on her podcast doesn’t hurt me. So why would I not team up with my friend and always share ideas we have for getting more listeners?

Laura: So I’ve noticed that your tactic now tends to be, you’ll ask people to comment a particular word, and then you send them the link. Are you using Manychat for that?

Jenna Warrina: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m using manychat.com. i have the paid version now because I have a, uh, substantial audience. But your first thousand uses on manychat are free. And I’m not an affiliate, I’m just a spearheader. So then once you start using it more, you pay more. So I think I pay like maybe $40, $60, something like that a month. And I use it every week pretty frequently. And yeah, you can set it up online. It’s an automation, which is a word that I usually fear, but it was so easy to do. Like, I posted a tutorial, Google a tutorial you can find on YouTube tutorials so easily on how you make it. So when someone comments a trigger word like lemonade, you slide into their DM’s with the link. And it has its ups and downs, like it has its pros and cons. But the algorithm loves engagement, right? So anytime someone’s interacting on your post, the algorithm is going to show your post to more people. So the old way of doing things is to tell someone to go to your link in bio, which means they don’t interact with your posts, they don’t touch it, they don’t comment, they don’t swipe, they just go right to your page and touch your website. But with this new tactic, they comment the keywords. So you’re getting engagement and you’re getting your website traffic because they’re going into your DM’s. And pro tip from a social media manager, when you’re interacting with someone in your DM’s, they’re more likely to see tomorrow’s content. That’s why you always see like your best friend’s story. So just by having DM’s going like direct messages, going with your leads, they’re more likely to see all of your nurturing content that you’re posting throughout the week.

Laura: So linking bio is dead.

Jenna Warrina: I still use it sometimes, especially if I’m cross posting something on TikTok and Instagram, and I don’t want to edit it twice. I’ll use link in bio, but if I’m near my computer and I can set up a, um, manychat automation, it’s easier, faster, superior at the moment.

Laura: Yeah, because I’ve seen sometimes people will comment over 100 people, and I’m thinking, how is she keeping up with sending all these links to our episode? So I thought you must have been having some help there.

Jenna Warrina: Oh, funny. No, yeah, one time actually, when I was first getting started with it, my automation, I forgot to turn it on and I was driving to the store with my mom and I was like, oh no, none of these are going through. And I had to like rapidly respond to everyone and then cheque if I’d responded to people. And it was like a nightmare for that day. So I’m like, oh, wow, what a champagne problem, first of all. And I’m so happy to have this software.

Laura: Exactly. Yeah, it sounds like a good idea.

You need three types of content to grow on social media, right

So how do you use Instagram analytics to measure the success of your podcast promotion?

Jenna Warrina: So, fun fact, I don’t really care all that much about analytics, and I teach my clients not to either. Um, because you need three types of content to grow on social media, right? You need your growth content, nurture content and sales content. And we don’t expect, let’s say, strangers to find us and in the first 3 seconds

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Jenna Warrina: of knowing us, go listen to our podcast, right? It’s more of a nurture or sales tool. It’s not that growth piece. It could be, but strategically speaking, it’s probably not. So that means that if you’re posting your growth content, your nurture content and your sales content on social media, the growth stuff is where we want big numbers, big views, new followers coming in, lots of comments that are like, whoa, who is this cheque? Right? And the nurture content is where we want people travelling from the post to podcast. And the nurture content, we don’t expect to have huge numbers. So if you look at like your most popular posts in the last three months, they’re going to be the growth stuff, not the nurture stuff. And that does not mean stop posting. Nurture. Nurture is probably going to get fewer new eyeballs. If you’re looking at your analytics, the percentage of non followers is likely to be lower. You’re probably going to have fewer comments, but the comments are going to be like really lovely and juicy and like, I really needed to hear this today. Thanks so much, man. I love your content. I’ve been thinking about you lately, or it’s like you’re in my head, or wow, this hit home. That’s the comments you want on your nurture stuff. Lower numbers, but deeper rooted comments. And then those people travelling over to the podcast. So not a lot of people look at it that way. And a type a person is like shaking in their boots because they want graphs and charts. But that’s never been how I look at it. And it works for me and it works for my clients.

Laura: That’s quite refreshing to hear because I never look at my analytics, I just put them on the back burner. Uh, I feel like I should, but, yeah, I don’t really look at them either.

Jenna Warrina: The other way that you can look at it, Laura, is like the stock market. So my dad always taught me not to cheque on my stocks every day. Because you’ll drive yourself crazy, right? Because it goes up and down and it always corrects itself. So instead, look at it every month, and then you can look back at the whole month and then the data, uh, like, you’re not judging based on outliers, right. You have actual data if you’ve been posting five days a week to look back on. Okay. What performed the best? What took me the least time to make, right? Because if you have something that’s easy to make, it’s worth it to post two of those instead of the one that took you all afternoon to whip up. Look at what got the most engagement, what got the most clicks to your website, and what got the most comments. That, uh, was someone going, wow, like, this is really good. Thank you so much for sharing this.

Laura: Yeah. It’s about getting that trust and a relationship, isn’t it? That’s more important sometimes.

Jenna Warrina: Absolutely, yeah.

Laura: Yeah.

How do you convert followers into podcast listeners and clients

Can you give any examples of how you’ve converted followers into podcast listeners and clients? Is there a way that you can connect all that together?

Jenna Warrina: Yeah, absolutely. I know because I launched my podcast and about six months. July. Yeah, about five, six months later, my Instagram blew up and my podcast numbers blew up with that. So my podcast was already performing really well, and my promotion had been through my email list, you know, SEO and optimising it the best I can, optimising the launch and talking about it on social media. But then my Instagram had a humongous growth spurt and the podcast listeners went up with it.

Using Manychat automation, I created a caption formula to write a sales post

So using the Manychat automation, I also gave away. Oh, here’s another one. I gave away a freebie. I’m gonna promote this today, actually, which is a caption formula to write a sales post. And the title is ten sales calls in 3 hours. And the way that I promote it is our client, when we used this caption formula, booked ten sales calls in 3 hours and she had to turn off her calendar. How would it feel for you if you booked ten sales calls? Right. And the caption formula is full of like marketing psychology and messaging. And the goal is from like a marketing perspective, the goal is that when someone goes through it, they either have good success and realise that I can help them have even more success and get more clients, or they realise they have some areas where they need support and I can come and help and support them. So it’s a freebie. It is a free gift, but it also lead people towards working with me. So my business coach actually suggested I make a podcast episode to go alongside this freebie. So I give away the freebie and then in my email marketing and in the freebie I’m like, also go listen to the podcast. And I give away the podcast. And I say, also go download the freebie to get people onto my email list. So both things are kind of feeding each other in both directions. Does that make sense how I explained it?

Laura: Yeah, that’s really good. Yeah, you can see all the links there. And I noticed it myself. I was looking, ah, I was on charitable the other day checking for clients where they were in the charts, and I noticed your podcast on there. And it’s been in the charts probably since you launched because it’s been so popular and it’s such a good podcast.

Jenna Warrina: Last week it was in the top 50 in the US for marketing and now it’s in the top 100. But it fell this week, but it raised up and it’s in like top 30 for Canada for marketing. So

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Jenna Warrina: I’ll take it. I’m in Canada, so I’ll take it.

What role does Instagram Stories play in your podcast promotion strategy

Laura: So what role does Instagram Stories play in your podcast promotion strategy?

Jenna Warrina: Oh, that’s great. So, you know, a lot of people take it upon themselves to share the episodes that they’re listening to in their stories. I get tagged all the time and I think because, like, I know at least Spotify has a quick button where you can quickly share what you’re listening to into your stories. So I love when, um, people do that and they tag me and then I can share it. And in marketing, we have this principle that it’s just essentially people will do what other people are doing. So the more you can show that people are listening to your podcast, the more people want to listen to your podcast. That’s why you see it like the bottom of a website when you’re buying something, over a hundred thousand copies sold, or the charts or top 40 music or whatever, like anytime you know other people are doing something, you’re more likely to do it because it makes you feel safer, because other people have essentially vetted that for you. So people will share my episodes to their stories and tag me and then I get to share that to my audience and being like, look, other people are listening. Also, Instagram Stories is the only other place on Instagram where you can share a direct link. So you can’t share a link in your caption. It doesn’t work. You can put it in your bio, you can send it in the DM’s, but there’s nowhere in forward facing content that you can actually put a, uh, URL to tell people to go click it. So pretty much every week I will link to my podcast on, um, Spotify and Apple because those are our top platforms. And I’ll link to that in my Instagram Stories and tell people a little bit about the episode so they have a quick link to go to it. And I do usually cheque the data on those just to see if people are actually clicking it. But even if it’s just a handful, I’ll take it. Like, I won’t stop doing it because it’s not 100 people. Or if a thousand people listen to the story and only eight people click it, I’m still gonna keep doing it because I want those eight people to listen to the show.

Laura: I’ve actually done that as well when you’ve posted it on your stories and I listen to your podcast on a regular basis, but I might have forgotten one. I’ve done that on your stories, too. So it does work. Cause I’m one of those people that stalks you on Instagram. Cause you’ve got such a great Instagram page. And I’ll be one of those people that click on the link. So it does work.

Jenna Warrina: Yeah. And if you’re listening, it’s Jenna’s page and pages with an I. Cause it’s my middle name. So that’s my handle at Jenna’s page.

Laura: I.

Jenna Warrina: And you know what is, like, the most flattering thing that ever. That happens usually on Mondays when I promote my episodes, is I’ll promote it and someone will say, I already listened to this. It’s good. Go listen to it. And I just thought, just makes my day. And here’s another tip. If that happens to you, pin that comment, because it’s going to show up for other people and then they’re going to get FOMo. So whenever I have a comment that says, like, I listened to this episode, it’s so good. Or this, whatever, like anything like that. Or even just, I love your podcast. I pin it so other people can see that person’s comments so they want to go listen to it as well.

Laura: Yes.

What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about promoting your podcasts on Instagram

Great. And so you’ve given us a lot of lessons here already. But what are, uh, some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about promoting your podcasts on Instagram?

Jenna Warrina: Well, I learned right at the beginning to, like, really shout from the rooftops that it was happening. So when I was first launching it, I posted a tonne about it, and I crafted out some launch content, planned how I wanted it to be perceived, and really shouted about it before it existed, which isn’t something that I typically do. Even with my clients, we don’t tease. That stuff is coming up very often. I’m usually just like, let’s just get butts in seats. Not like butts waiting out line to get in seats. But then I learned that it was important to promote it before it existed. So I did that so that we could have a really successful launch. And, you know, I’m thinking because that was so valuable, and so many people now don’t even know that I have the show because I only talk about it about once a week. And when you have something, you got to talk about it all the time. Whether it’s your free offer, a paid offer, or a podcast, you got to talk about it nonstop. So I might, like, wrap season one and then do a big promotion for season two so that people know that season two exists. Another lesson that I’ve learned is if you invite guests, invite guests you think are big fish. Like, invite people that you think are, uh, too big and would never say yes because the worst they can do is say no. And I have had one guest is coming and one guest who’s already come who I would have thought were way too big for me, and they said yes right away.

Laura: Yeah, that’s the amazing thing about podcasts. And you end up connecting with people you never would have thought you’d connect with.

Jenna Warrina: True.

Laura: And going back to your post when you were launching, I remember. So what Jenna did is on her first post, I think it was your first one, talking about your podcast. You were opening up your box, and you were getting your blue yeti mike out and saying, oh, something’s coming. And so you did that. And then another post. You were telling everyone what your music was going to be. So you did a really good build up.

Jenna Warrina: Yeah. And so I. Obviously, social media is

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Jenna Warrina: quite easy for me, like, coming up with ideas, but I did need to, like, dig into my brain and come up with, how do I talk about a show that doesn’t exist yet? Like, I’m not sharing clips from it. So what can I post that, uh, will get people excited before I have anything to post? So, yeah, I came up with the unboxing video for the microphone and the reveal of the audio, I think was in a hotel for that one too, because I got custom audio from my friend and Jordan woods and, uh, reveal of the artwork. Also asking people what it should be called, knowing that I don’t need to go with whatever the main vote was. But when I was trying to think of the title and then title reveal, anything like that, to, like, pump up the energy and get people as excited as I was.

Laura: Yeah. And you really did that because you got me excited and I couldn’t wait for it to launch. I remember when it came out and I binge listened to it as soon as I got up in the morning. Your first five episodes.

Jenna Warrina: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. You’re such a band. That’s so nice.

Laura: I am.

Jenna Warrina: Woo.

Laura: Woo.

Don’t assume everybody already knows about your podcast on Instagram

So what are some of the do’s and don’ts when it comes to promoting your podcast on Instagram?

Jenna Warrina: Don’t assume everybody already knows and nobody cares because nobody knows and you have no idea who’s going to care, right? Because even as a business owner and like, obviously I work with business owners and I had my agency for several years, and then one day I called my cousin to ask if he had any apartments that we could live in because we were changing cities. And he was like, no, I don’t. But like, what’s going on? And I was like, oh, uh, I’m just hiring someone in my business right now. And he’s like, what? You have a business? And I’m like, oh, my, this is my cousin. Like, he doesn’t even know that I own a business. So how many other people right in front of my face don’t. Even though I’m in here every day, I’m growing this business. Every day I’m posting about this business every day. Nobody’s paying attention. They have their own lives, right? And it’s the same with your show. It’s the same with your business. It’s the same with your show. You have to talk about it constantly. There’s all sorts of people that are going to need to hear you mention it 510, 1520 times before they actually download an episode and fall in love with you. So you just need to keep talking about it. And also recognise that if someone gets annoyed, like, our biggest fear when we’re talking about something like this is if someone gets annoyed because you were talking about your show, they’re not your ideal audience, so who cares? Let them leave. Your goal is to be attracting your ideal audience. And sometimes that means repelling people who aren’t for you. And with that said, you want to tell people why they should listen to the show, what they’re going to get out of it, why they will love it. If you’re just begging people to listen or like, talking about yourself, well, that’s going to turn people off, no doubt.

Laura: Yeah, I totally agree with that.

What future trends do you see in Instagram marketing that podcasters should be aware of

What future trends do you see in Instagram marketing that podcasters should be aware of?

Jenna Warrina: Ooh, okay, well, I think it’s important to remember that this whole reels thing didn’t even really exist until two years ago. And so things can change. Like, things can change on a dime. And then when reels came, there was the music thing, and then now there’s the b roll thing, and then there’s the talking head thing where you’re talking to the camera, and there was the audiogram thing, and now that’s gone, it’s not as popular anymore. So in terms of where I see the trends going, one, they can change on a dime. And it’s not like you’re going to get a memo, right? It’s not like someone’s going to go, everything is different now. It’s just like you need to kind of pay attention to what when people’s tastes are changing. And, um, it’s not about following trends and hopping on every new thing. It’s just like, notice that maybe right now there’s more room for you to show yourself talking and recording your podcast in real time than there was before. Right? Like the big trend on TikTok right now is to show video, like high quality video of you actually recording the show. And maybe there’s going to be more room for longer videos because Instagram has been rolling out longer videos to different users. So maybe people are going to want that whole three minute segment, right? I’m not about chasing trends. And, like, if there’s a trending audio, I don’t care. Hashtags, I don’t really care. Like, I know after years doing this, that’s not actually the secret to success, like people think it is. But pay attention to your audience and how they want to consume information.

Laura: Yeah, I’ve given up trying to work out the trends, so I just do a little bit of everything and hope something sticks. Probably not what you recommend your clients do.

Jenna Warrina: Well, you can explore with like, formats and stuff. In my programme, magic marketing machine, business owners create a strategy, right? And in that strategy, the strategy says, like, what the content should be about, and then you can experiment with the format. And if you find that super simple seven second reels are really easy for you, great, let’s make sure to do that because that’s going to be sustainable. If you’re trying to create like big, elaborate content as one of your like pillars

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Jenna Warrina: on. So every Friday you post this big, elaborate content piece, you’re going to burn out quick. You’re going to realise that while as long as you’re a solopreneur, it’s not sustainable. Right. So the strategy needs to kind of balance across things and then you’re going to need to experiment with a bunch of different content types to figure out what, uh, even feels good. So you make your strategy, you start producing the content and then you have to reflect on it and be like, okay, what can I keep? What can I ditch? What’s easy, what’s hard, what’s working and what’s not, or whatever, you know? So it’s okay if right now you’re in a phase of trying all the things, as long as a month from now you look back and cherry pick the parts that worked and be really conscious of this being an experimental phase and then, you know, who cares?

Laura: This is great. So I guess you teach all this in magic marketing machine?

Jenna Warrina: Yeah, yeah. In magic marketing machine, we help service based business owners create amazing content and get clients from their content and manage their account in 15 minutes a day. Like, that’s the main thing. And part of that is getting support. Part of that is the experimenting. Part of that’s using our proven strategy templates, making graphics in canva, using our canva tips. Like, there’s so much involved in that. In general though, it’s like to have this strategy that is as easy and fast as possible for you to keep up with and produce every day.

Laura: Sounds amazing. So we’re going to put the links to everything you mentioned in the show notes. And where can people find you?

Jenna Warrina: Yeah, look for me at jemma’s page. Uh, j e n n a s p a I g e on Instagram. Come say hi. Come dm me and tell me this is where you found me. That would be fun.

Laura: Thanks so much, Jenna. Thanks for coming today.

Jenna Warrina: My pleasure. We’ll see you online.

Jenna Jenner shares her tips on promoting your podcast on Instagram

Laura: What an incredible conversation with Jenna. I loved hearing about her strategies for promoting her podcast on Instagram. From using Manychat to create engaging and interactive content to the clever way she integrates her podcast with her, uh, overall marketing strategy, Jenner truly stands out. I especially appreciated her perspective on nurturing versus growth content and how she uses analytics without getting bogged down by them. It’s such a refreshing approach that I think many of us can learn from. For me, the biggest takeaway is the importance of being creative and authentic in how we engage with our audience. Jenner’s methods show that with a bit of ingenuity and a willingness to try new things, we can all improve our podcast promotion efforts. So whether you’re just starting out or looking to boost your existing podcast, take a page from Jenner’s playbook. Don’t be afraid to shout from the rooftops about your podcast. Experiment with different engagement tactics and most importantly, have fun with it. Thanks for tuning in, and if you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe or follow. If you found value in this podcast, please leave. A five star rating and a review would be even better. Your support shows that this is a good show which will attract high profile guests and in turn deliver greater value to you. This podcast is produced and edited by me. Don’t waste your time on editing. Let me help you with your podcast. Cheque out the links in the show notes to get in touch.

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