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The $100 MBA Show
Podcasting Is Moving To Instagram (Here’s Why That Matters)
00:14:08
Great content alone isn’t enough anymore because discovery has shifted. Most will tell you to just keep publishing episodes, but if you’re not adapting, your show is becoming invisible.
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And this just in the Comcast Business Price Lock Guarantee is back. For a limited time you can lock in the same great rate on gig speed, Internet and advanced security for five years, all from the company with 99.9% network reliability. Switch to the Comcast Business 5 Year Price Lock Guarantee today. Learn more at comcastbusiness.com ends March 29, 2026 the era of growing your podcast through just great content is officially dead. And if you're not adapting, your show is becoming invisible no matter how good your episodes are. I've been podcasting since 2014 with over 300 million downloads and 2700 episodes and this is the biggest shift in the way people discover podcasts that I've ever seen. People aren't searching Apple or Spotify or even YouTube anymore, they're finding podcasts through Instagram. It's exactly how Mel Robbins, Huberman Lab and the Dographer CEO have exploded in less than a year. So in the next 12 minutes I'm gonna break down the exact three step framework the fastest growing shows in the world are using right now and why Instagram needs to become your number one growth engine. I know I'm making it my top priority. Foreign. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. I got a quick favor to ask if this show has helped you in any way. Leave me a quick review you could do. So wherever you listen to podcasts, this helps me and my team reach even more people who need the same no fluff practical business advice that you're getting from the show. It only takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. Here's the uncomfortable truth. Podcasts don't get shared. Nobody DMs their friend. Hey, I'm listening to episode 312 minute 47. Check it out. You know, I know because I've been running this podcast and I've been trying to get people to share my podcast for over 11 years. What I discovered is that that's not how humans behave, but what they do share are 20 second insights, a hot take, a quick reel, a moment that makes them say this, this is what I've been looking for. I gotta share it with somebody else now. Instagram is not a podcast platform. It's a sharing platform. Now think about when's the last time you shared something on Instagram you DMed a friend or a family member? Probably just five minutes ago. And sharing is how growth happens. And it's painful because I learned this the hard way. And now that I'm doing this, I'm seeing the growth that I should have been seeing for years. This is why podcasts that embrace video plus short form are exploding and the rest are just stuck wondering why their downloads are plateauing. I want to give you some real concrete examples. Mel Robbins. Mel Robbins has got a podcast that has grown tremendously in the last 12 months. And she didn't grow her podcast because people were searching on Apple podcasts. She grew because her clips were everywhere on Instagram. Short, emotionally charged videos, Clear, practical advice, statements that made people feel understood, even statements people didn't agree with. But people didn't discover her because by looking for her on Spotify or Even searching on YouTube, they discovered her through sharing. People sharing clips with their friends. People sending the message, hey, you need more of this in your life? Check out this clip. The dire of a CEO Stephen Bartlett. The show didn't explode because of podcast SEO exploded because of highly produced video clips, strong emotional hooks, honest, vulnerable moments people wanted to to repost or share. Now, I met Steven Barley in person and he told me as a fellow podcaster, you got to get into short form video. It's how my show grew so fast. He told me that Instagram and TikTok were the top of the funnel for him. It's how people discovered his podcast, not through a podcast app. Huberman Lab. Now, Andrew Huberman is a scientist, talks a lot about the human body and a lot of this stuff is confusing and complicated. But he really was able to grow his show by explaining one idea clearly in a short clip. By doing this, he made people feel smarter for sharing it. Hey, I got a little insight that's gonna make you a little smarter, friend. Look how smart I am. Well, all these podcasts that blew up all have in common. Even though they have different styles and different personalities and different audiences, they have the same strategy of getting people to share their podcast through short form video. On social media, particularly Instagram, they didn't rely on platforms like YouTube or Spotify or Apple to to recommend them. They relied on individual people to share their clips on social. And that's the game now. One to one sharing one to one recommendations. So I want to share with you my three step Instagram podcast growth framework that I'm using to grow our show. And I've seen incredible results already. Number one, you want to design your podcast for moments. Most podcasters make one critical mistake, and I know this firsthand because I was doing this mistake for years, where you record an episode and then you hope something good will come out of it. That's actually backwards. If you want to grow on Instagram, you must design moments intentionally when you're recording. That means having a clear opinion, sharp contrast, strong framing, memorable lines. You don't want to ramble for the most part because you you want to make sure that you have a concise message that you can share. You want to be able to share clear ideas and ask yourself while recording, what will someone want to share? What will make somebody look smart if they reposted this or shared it with a friend? Your job is not to only record the podcast and have great content, but your job is all to create shareable intellectual currency, intellectual property that, that other people can leverage and use so they can look good. Now another option is that you can shoot intentional reels for your episodes so that they echo the episode's content so it's a little bit more focused, it's a little bit more contained. And if you want to learn more about that, hang on. Cause I'll talk about that later in the episode. So step one make sure that you have planned sound bites that you can use in short form, even if you're doing an interview podcast. For example, I'll be sitting down with Charles Duhigg, the author of a great book called Super Communicators. I've already planned out that when I'm asking him questions and when I'm going back and forth with him, I'm asking short, crisp, concise questions that require clear answers really quickly. Even if you want to ask your guest, hey, answer this question in one sentence or less. Even see it as a game. So that way you can have a very tight piece of content that you can share. On social this doesn't have to be the whole conversation, it could just be a segment of the conversation that you can use. Today's episode is sponsored by Quo. This year, let's make it all about not missing opportunities. And that starts with not missing calls. Because a missed call is money out the door. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation so you never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers. Which is why today's episode is sponsored by Quo, spelled Q U O. The modern alternative to run your business communications quantum. Quo works everywhere you are, right from an app on your phone or computer and lets you keep your existing number, add new numbers or teammates in minutes, sync your CRM, and rely on seamless routing and call flows as your business scales. Quo isn't just a phone system, it's a smart system. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.commba that's quashuo.commba no missed calls, no missed customers. Today's episode is sponsored by upwork. Listen Hiring help shouldn't be a headache or a drain on your budget. Upwork makes it easy to hire specialized freelancers quickly so you can get the expertise you need. Now I know this firsthand because I've used upwork for over a decade and we made some of the best hires through upwork. This is because they're a one stop platform to find, hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations and more. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Upwork helps you grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent or across more than 125 categories so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. I've hired software engineers, managers, marketing specialists, copywriters, social media experts. Upwork is truly amazing and with business plus you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. And with AI powered shortlisting you can get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's upwork.com upwork.com Step 2 Optimize for sharing, not for Followers Followers are not as important as they used to be and this is an absolute big insight. You need to really remember Instagram growth doesn't come from followers, it comes from shares and saves. The algorithm really rewards when you have a post that's been shared, a lot has been sent into the DMs that has been posted to stories that has been saved for later. All these signals allows Instagram to say oh, this is a very, very good piece of content. Let's show it to more people. That means your clips must speak to a specific pain. They must have some emotion or evoke some emotion so people can feel compelled to share it. And it should someone say, this explains how I feel, or this explains something I've been wondering about or been thinking about. So stop asking, will my audience like this. Start asking yourself, will someone share this with one other person? Because if one person shares it and it's good enough to be shared once, that other person will share as well, and that will become 10 people to a thousand people. That's how it works. It snowballs. And that's how podcasts grow through social media and particularly Instagram, because remember, Instagram is the sharing platform. It's the number one platform where people like to share content. If you're finding value from today's episode, you may want to subscribe to the podcast because I'm working on an upcoming episode that you might not want to miss. This episode's all about, if you're over 40, how do you build a plan for yourself so that you have financial freedom by the time you retire? So hit subscribe so you don't miss that one when it comes out. Step three, Treat Instagram as your front door, not an afterthought. Guys, here's the mindset shift that changed everything for me. Instagram is not where you promote your podcast. It's where your podcast gets trialed. It's where people decide if they want your podcast. The clips that you put on Instagram, that is your podcast. It's just a short form version of your podcast. It's not like an advertisement. Your podcast is a little in depth. It's more of what you're putting on Instagram. See it as sort of Instagram as the audition. It's the free trial of a product. Right? You know, the podcast is free as well. But the point here is, is that it gets people a taste of what it's like to experience your podcast. A good way to know if you're doing this right on Instagram or TikTok is that you should see comments below your video that ask, where is the full episode? What's the title of this episode? How can I Learn more? This means they like what they tasted and want more, and they want to go in depth in the full episode. Most podcasters I see, they post clips like, here's a highlight from episode two, one, four. No, nobody cares, okay? A winning clip says something very, very cohesive. It's a piece of content in its own. Like, this is why people stay broke. Or nobody tells you about this. When it comes to success, this mistake is actually killing your profits in your business. And you explain what that is. You have a good 90 seconds on a reel. And if those 90 seconds are gold, people are going to share it and then they're going to say, hey, where can I learn more? Where's the full episode of this? Instagram earns the attention. The podcast earns you the next 20 minutes, or to an hour or whatever how long your podcast is. So if you want people to pay attention, you want people to get interested in what you have, you got to show them the best of the best of what you offer on that clip, on that reel on Instagram. Let me just say this flat out plainly. The podcasters who refuse to do this and adapt and start growing on Instagram, they will either stay small forever or just disappear. I know these podcasters personally. They are resisting this change and they just don't want to do what it takes to grow their show. They want to just continue to do what they're doing, just publish and hope people will find them. And here's a sad truth that no one wants to admit. Distribution beats talent. You can be brilliant, you can be insightful, you can be right, you can be entertaining. But if your ideas don't travel, they don't matter. And the great thing about Instagram is that if you put in enough iterations now, there's difference between repetition and iteration. Iteration means every time I do something, I'm doing it a little bit differently. I'm improving upon what I did last time. You know, I put something out, I see what worked, I do that, I see what didn't work, and I change that. And I iterate. I do something a little bit different every single time. And every time I put it out, I'm trying to improve and get a better result. So Instagram is really good at that. Because if you continue to do that and be consistent with the volume and iterate and iterate and iterate, you will begin to start to grow. And I know this because I've experienced this myself in the last year. So you don't need to be perfect, but you got to be willing to say, hey, that didn't work, or I got to get better. What are some ways I can change the next piece of content to make it better? Podcast is moving to Instagram because that's where attention and sharing lives. Now, it may be somewhere else in the future, but right now, Instagram is the king. And if you embrace this, your podcast becomes discoverable, your ideas compound, your audience grows without you begging the platforms or spending a lot of money on ad dollars. We're not trying to chase the algorithm here. It's about respecting how humans actually consume and share ideas in 2026. And right now, they're sharing on Instagram. You just gotta face reality. This is what people are doing. Why go against the grain? Why go against the momentum? Use it to your advantage. Before I go, I want to leave you with this honest truth. I resisted social media in general, but particularly Instagram, for a very long time. And I'm paying the price now. I'm kind of making up for lost time. I really didn't get serious about Instagram until the last, I would say 18 months. And I've been running a podcast over 11 years, so I'm a little bit of a cautionary tale. Don't do what I did and neglect it for so long. You know, I really have gone all in on social and on Instagram in particular for the last 18 months, like I mentioned. And it's making such a big difference in our podcast, in the audience, that we're growing in our email list, in our brand in general. So don't leave these opportunities on the table. They won't be here forever. Okay? Because it's Instagram today, maybe the next few years, but maybe something else in the future. And like I said, what gets shared grows. Okay, so you really want to use this to your advantage. If this episode hit you, I want to recommend another episode you should check out that we published recently called how to Focus and get ahead of 99% of people. If you have a hard time focusing and getting things done, you're going to love this episode. It'll help you decide what to double down on so that you don't waste your time and you start making progress. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe, or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or ever. You listen to podcasts by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to. To growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.
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