How to Get Booked on Podcasts (Even With a Small Audience)

15 | Have you ever wished you could be a guest on a podcast but stopped yourself because your social media audience feels too small? This episode busts the myth that you need a big following to get booked and shares exactly what hosts are really looking for from their guests. I reveal my firsthand experience as a podcast host and guest, and how having fewer followers can actually be your advantage. If you’re ready to show up, share your message, and serve, this episode is proof that you don’t need to wait until you’re “somebody.” You just need clarity, courage, and a willingness to connect.

Topics Discussed:

• Why podcast hosts care more about value than your follower count
• The common myths keeping small business owners from podcast guesting
• How having a small audience can actually work in your favor
• What you really need to get booked (it’s not numbers)
• Simple ways to start making connections that lead to podcast invites

You don’t need permission or a perfect follower count to share your voice. When your message is clear and your intention is to serve, podcast invitations follow. This episode is your reminder: your voice is ready, your audience is waiting, and the only thing you need is to start showing up. Today.

Connect with Nina Macarie:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nina_macarie
Facebook: https://facebook.com/nina.macarie.3
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ninaoneluckystar
Work with me: https://oneluckystar.com/services

Transcript

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Have you ever thought I would love to record a podcast but I don't have a big audience yet? If that sounds familiar, then this episode is for you. Today we are going to talk about how to get booked on podcasts even with a small audience and why your follower count is almost never the reason hosts will say yes. Welcome to Step Into Your Voice, a podcast for women and business moms who are ready to stop dimming their light and start showing up with courage, clarity, and confidence. I am your host Nina Makariem and I wanna start by saying this. I did not grow my business because I have a huge audience. I grew it because I decided I wanna get visible and I decided before I felt I am ready. And podcast guesting played a pretty big role in that. It keeps them stuck and keeps them waiting because they are waiting to be a bigger business owner, they are waiting to be more confident, they are waiting to speak more eloquently, they are waiting to feel ready to do this. But here is the truth. Most podcast hosts will not ask you about your audience size unless they really care about numbers. Let that land for a minute. When a host considers a guest, they are usually asking themselves a few things. Will this be relevant to my audience? Can this person really communicate their ideas? Does this conversation solve a real problem? Will my listeners walk away with value? Notice what's missing from this list? Follower count. I've seen hosts chosen guests with a few hundred followers over guests with tens of thousands simply because the message was clearer and more aligned. And I recently did this myself. I connected with another amazing business owner over a networking event, and I decided to invite her on my podcast because I was so sure that she was going to bring value on my podcast, and I was not even interested in how many followers she has on her social media. Later I learned that she is mainly present on LinkedIn and then on Instagram. She does not have yet a hundred followers, but does that matter? Not at all. She dropped a lot of golden gems, so I invite you to listen to her interview because you are going to get away with amazing value. And here is something that people don't talk about enough. Having a small audience can actually work in your favor. When your audience is small, you are often closer to the problem. You actually speak from your lived experience, not just theory. And you are usually much more specific about who you serve and the problem you are helping them to solve. And the specificity, this is what is going to make that podcast episode land. This is why it's so important to focus on your people, and obviously, you need to spend a little bit of time to decide exactly who your ideal client is, who is that audience that you want to put yourself in front of. And also, it's very important not to try to please everyone because it's just impossible. So if you don't need a big audience, then what do you need? You need clarity, you need a clear message, you need a clear audience, and you need a clear transformation. If a host will understand immediately what their listeners are going to gain from your conversation, you've already done 80% of the work. And if you are listening to this episode or watching this video, and you're thinking, okay, but where do I start? Just start small. Have conversations, practice your message, refine your story. Visibility isn't about being perfect. Visibility is about being present. And this is exactly what I shared before. One of the easiest things for you to do is to join networking events. This is how you are going to connect with other amazing business owners, and some of them will probably have podcasts. And if that conversation will spark something in them, you will get an invite or connect with other business owners over coffee chats. This is how I got other invites just by connecting with another business owner, being willing to learn more about their business, and they were willing to learn more about my business, my message, and because we clicked, I got the podcast invite. So consider this your permission slip. You can get booked on podcasts even with a small audience when your message is clear and your intention is to serve. If you are looking just for a transaction, then I believe most hosts will say no thank you. Join me next time for another episode where I'm going to share what hosts are looking for in podcast guests and how to position yourself as a podcast guest and how to pitch without feeling sexy.