Before you read on, you should know that this article is part of a series on developing a visibility strategy. This is chapter 8 in that series.

Pick up all the chapters here.

In this chapter we’re focused on promoting your work on other people’s platforms. Other people’s platforms include;

• podcast shows
• You Tube shows
• blogs
• television, radio, magazines and other traditional media channels
• conferences, and
• summits.

Any of these platforms will work for you if you’re discerning about the people you’re going to pitch to. It’s better to pitch to one You Tuber whose community is completely aligned to yours for example, than it is to pitch yourself to 100 You Tubers who have communities that are only tangentially connected to the type of people you’re trying to reach.

The strategy of showing up on other people’s platforms is also going to work well for you if you take the time to understand that person’s audience and their needs.

When I used to host a podcast show, I’d receive the most random interview pitches from people whose businesses literally had nothing to do with my show. The format of the show was, for a long time, just me. No interviews. But that didn’t still stop people pitching me. Even when I did conduct interviews, people who had no interest or background in anything connected to business and personal development (the topic of the podcast) would still pitch me. Such people were obviously taking a very broad scatter gun approach to getting interviewed and wasting both my time and theirs.

Better to choose a much smaller number of people to pitch to and be sure you’re really clear about how you can add value to their platform and serve their community.

To do this well, you also need to be very very clear about who you’re here to serve. If you don’t yet know that, there’s no point in reaching out to other people. You’ll just get very busy with very little to show for it.

Are some platforms better than others? 

That depends on the platform you’re building. If you’re building a You Tube channel then you’ll want to pitch to other You Tubers. If you’re building a podcast show, you’ll want to pitch to podcasters, and if you’re building a blog, you’ll ideally look for guest blogging opportunities.

That’s not a completely hard and fast rule – as a blogger you can obviously appear as a guest on other people’s You Tube channels and podcast shows – but in the interests of bringing people into your community, it’s easier to bring an established podcast listener over to your podcast show than it is to convince them to develop a new habit of also watching You Tube videos each week, and vice versa.

If traditional media is where you’d like to focus your attention, there are two key things to remember there; traditional media have long lead times so you need to plan in advance, and in what seems like a contradictory statement, journalists work to tight timeframes, so you need to be able to respond very quickly to their requests and be prepared to be interviewed very shortly after they contact you.

With regard to conferences and summits, the big thing to remember is you’re part of a collective offering. This isn’t just about you and the host as it is with podcast or You Tube interviews. Conference and summit organisers are pulling together a complementary set of speakers. So understanding their theme and offering a few ways you could present the topic, depending on the other presenters in the room, can be useful.

Finally, everyone wants a new angle on what they’ve presented before. So understanding what each host has offered their audience in the past and considering what might be unique or different or interesting to them is not only thoughtful, it’s imperative to the success of your efforts.

Summary

The key to success with this approach is to be as targeted as possible and to understand the environment (the way of operating, the values, the types of things people consider in making a decision about their guests) that you’re trying to break into.

Next up in this series on creating your visibility strategy: Promoting on socials

Looking for all the chapters on creating your visibility strategy? You’ll find them all here.