As is often the case with podcasts, the client was struggling to bring audio content to life visually on social media. They were keen to get the vibe of the show across, but didn’t know how. We pivoted to a video-led strategy; encouraging James and Dan to start filming not only the podcast, but also video content outside of the podcast, to bring their personalities and the dynamic between them to life.

We stopped obsessing with trying to make content from each episode “work” on social, instead creating original content that reflected and referenced the podcast. Their social following has doubled over the past year, and their average post engagement rate has tripled.

WHY WE DID IT?

A lot of podcasts follow the social formula: take a great moment from each episode and make it work on social. This works really well for some podcasts, but sometimes (pretty often…) it can feel a bit forced. Also, what happens when the podcast takes a week off? It works particularly badly when podcasts aren’t filmed, so you’re forced to rely on audiograms and text on video.

James and Dan are both comedians with big personalities, so we wanted to test capturing content that was specifically made for social vs making something work. We also knew that this would be a great opportunity to take topics from the podcast further, to dig deeper, and to create moments outside of the podcast that would ultimately inform it.

HOW WE DID IT

We had to reframe how we approached content, which required some education from Monty and some trust from the client. We drip-fed this new wave of content so it didn’t feel like a shock, and gave us time to test what was working best.

The show moved from remote recording into a new studio space, where it’s recorded to capture moments with high profile guests, which was an immediate step up from audiograms. We then set the client video briefs (for reels) to complete each week, and we’d share regular feedback on what worked and what didn’t.

As this original content started to outperform the existing content, we booked in specific shoot dates with a list of trending content, key dates, and podcast-led themes to execute.

These performed well on Instagram, so we launched a TikTok account to test if the content could be optimised for there too. We also started asking podcast guests to agree to collaboration posts on Instagram so we could reach their audiences, as well as getting Dan and James to accept weekly collaboration posts too.

The sweet spot for Monty’s partnership with A Gay and A NonGay has been booking in regualar content shoots to jump on trends and to discuss podcast topics outside of the studio environment.

We’re constantly scouring fun shoot locations to keep the content looking fun and differentiated, to reflect their personalities.

The unique perspective ‘A Gay’ and ‘A NonGay’ brings to a broad spectrum of topics can be taken so much further outside of a studio recording.

Spending more time with James and Dan on these shoots has also enabled us to learn the type of trend they and their audience will respond best to.

We’ve also had to accept that not everything can be planned. Often the real magic from these shoots are outtakes or things that come up on the spot…