Meet The Podcasters Killing It on Instagram

First, let’s address the elephant in the room. Yes, Instagram is a visual platform for posting images and videos. So you might think an article celebrating podcasters on Instagram is at odds with what podcasting is all about.

But it would be a mistake to ignore Instagram in the podcasting community just because it’s focused on visuals. In fact, Instagram is an excellent platform to grow your podcast, and here’s why: 

• Instagram is growing fast – you need to go where your listeners are, and that’s likely Instagram. The platform grew 9% in 2022, compared to Facebook’s 2% growth. 2 billion people now use Instagram – the same number of people who use WhatsApp!
• It’s a lot easier to build a brand on Instagram than on Facebook, which is more focused on connecting friends and family.
• You can reach totally new audiences through Instagram who perhaps haven’t ‘got into’ podcasting yet.

If you’re thinking you would have no idea where to start with running an Instagram account for your podcast, don’t worry. There are loads of podcasters doing great things on Instagram right now that you can take inspiration from. 

Here are just a few of those podcasters and what we can learn from them.

Creepy with Jon Grillz

• Followers: 14k
• Genre: Horror
• Instagram: @creepypod

If small-town horror podcasts are your thing, (or any kind of horror, in fact.) Creepy is a must-listen.

Jon Grillz has done a really impressive job of building a highly engaged Instagram following for the Creepy podcast.

There are two things that make Jon’s podcast Instagram a success:

1. Consistency: The sheer amount of horror content Jon single-handedly churns out is impressive. He publishes around three episodes per week, which gives him a whole load of material to post about on Instagram, which he does daily.
2. Humanising the podcast brand: Jon doesn’t exclusively post about his podcast – he also posts horror memes and other content to entertain and show a bit of his personality. Most importantly, he posts as himself using “I” rather than as a brand. It’s a small detail that really engages listeners on Instagram, as his followers know it’s him at the keyboard. It’s an opportunity to engage directly with the man behind the podcast, and listeners love that.

I got in touch with Jon to ask what he thinks about Instagram as a platform for growing his podcast:

“I love that Instagram can be a place where I can share weird/scary things, or just things that I love. It allows me to share a bit more of my personality (horror comedy clips I love, or my own love of cooking) to create a more welcoming space for people to get scared in ;)”

Jon Grillz

What can we learn from the Creepy podcast Instagram?

Jon’s account is a great example of how you can use your Instagram account to show a bit of your personality without necessarily showing your face. Despite posting daily, Jon never physically features in his posts, but that doesn’t matter. You still get a strong sense of him through his content. So, if the idea of being in front of the camera has been putting you off using Instagram, don’t let it get in your way.

What’s also interesting about the Creepypod Instagram account is how he uses Instagram reels. Reels are 90-second video clips, and Jon uses this feature to give followers a quick taster of new podcast episodes.

Stompcast with Dr. Alex George

• Followers: 28.2k
• Genre: Health & wellbeing
• Listeners: 2k per episode
• Instagram: @stompcast

Dr. Alex’s Stompcast has 26k followers even though it’s only been going since July 2022. 

The concept of Stompcast is ‘therapy while you walk’. What I really love about Stomcast is that it totally debunks this idea that we need to be sitting in a sound-proofed recording studio to get studio-quality podcast recordings. The technology is way beyond that now. And the background noises of birds, rain, and even road traffic seeping into the recordings only improve the listening experience. 

As you can imagine, the outdoor ‘studio’ also makes for great visual content for a platform like Instagram too. I can’t go 5 minutes into an episode without jumping over to Instagram to see what the guest looks like, what they’re wearing and what the weather was like that day (forgive me, I’m Scottish). 

What can we learn from the Stompcast Instagram?

The way Alex uses Instagram highlights is pretty interesting. He categorises clips by topic (health, relationships, finance, etc.), and each clip has a direct link to the relevant episode so you can jump straight into a therapy topic that you need support in.

He’s also making good use of a new Instagram feature: Broadcast channels. These are essentially like chatrooms where you can interact directly with your followers. Dr. Alex uses his as a space to test the water on topics followers might want covered in his episodes, and he does it pretty successfully – almost 500 people have joined so far.

Blindboy Podcast

• Followers: 181k 
• Genre: Comedy, History, mental health, sociology
• Listeners: 190k per episode
• Instagram: @blindboyboatclub

Blindboy started his career in music as a member of Irish punk band, the Rubber Bandits. But now, the Blindboy podcast is his full-time job. He has a cult-like following (including me!) who absolutely lap up his meandering, genre-bending episodes about art, history, literature, politics, psychology, mythology and everything in between. 

Apart from wearing a plastic bag on his head, Blindboy is known for his ‘hot takes’ where he takes a seemingly arbitrary thing (e.g. Weetabix, fried chicken sandwiches, Bailey’s Irish Cream) and digs deep into the history of it to find something truly shocking. As you can imagine, it’s the perfect formula for a super interesting and entertaining podcast. 

He’s relatively new to Instagram (180k followers but has x monthly listeners) but often speaks about how Instagram fosters a positive sense of community. He compares it to the likes of Twitter, which he says is built to amplify division and is a negative space for promoting his podcast. I’d have to agree with that.

What can we learn from Blindboy’s Instagram?

His community engagement is a massive strength. He encourages a lot of interaction on Instagram and takes the time to engage with his followers, which is great for nurturing loyalty and trust. He lets listeners choose which guests they’d like him to interview on different topics and even post questions they’d like him to ask in the comments.

Blindboy also runs his podcast show notes through Midjourney which AI generates an image to promote episodes in his Instagram feed. It’s a nice touch that really shows how varied and random every episode is! Here’s a guide on how to generate podcast art through Midjourney if you want to give it a try for your podcast.

The Scam Goddess with Laci Mosley

• Followers: 40.2k 
• Genre: Crime, Comedy
• Listeners: 99k per episode
• Instagram: @scamgoddesspod

Laci Mosley’s Scam Goddess is doing pretty well on Instagram right now. Since starting this article, I’ve had to update the follower numbers twice because it’s growing on a daily basis.

She encourages followers to submit scams they’ve heard about (both historical and current-day scams), which she explores and then retells in a really entertaining way.

Because the whole concept of the Scam Goddess podcast revolves around audience stories, this makes the community really active on social media.

But it’s fair to say that, although the podcast is based on listener stories, Laci herself is very much the podcast brand. It helps that she’s an actress and comedian, so you can gather she’s a great podcast host, too.

Unlike the other accounts on this list, Scam Goddess includes some TikTok-style behind-the-scenes content of her and her guests behind the mic. These videos get 2-3 times the views of other content, so clearly, they’re working for her brand.

What can we learn from Scam Goddess Instagram?

Laci uses reels to do a lot of cross-posting of her TikTok content. Repurposing content you’re using on other channels makes a lot of sense. Why go to the effort of creating social media content if you’re not sharing it anywhere and everywhere you can?

She also uses a basic template image for each episode – a photo of herself on a fake newspaper with the featured scam as the headline. This makes them really recognisable and helps them cut through the noise of busy Instagram feeds. And the bonus is, it also makes the images super easy to update! She adds sponsor logos to her images in an unintrusive way, too. A nice method of generating revenue from advertisers that doesn’t impact the listener experience of your podcast.

How to Grow Your Podcast on Instagram

To summarize, here are the main things we can learn from these Instagram accounts when planning how to promote our podcasts.

• Post regularly and consistently
• Encourage follower interaction and respond to comments
• Be yourself! This is an opportunity to show some personality – don’t waste it by posting like a faceless brand
• Use AI to help you create interesting visuals without spending too much time on it
• Use Instagram story highlights to push followers to specific episodes
• Link to episodes in Stories, too
• Use Reels to give followers tasters of new episodes when they go live
• Use your bio to link to your preferred listening platform (you can have one clickable link per bio)

Are you doing something interesting with your podcast Instagram account that isn’t covered in this article? Let us know in the IndiePod community – we want to hear about it (and you might make the cut)!