TikTok provides a unique opportunity to grow podcasts. TikTok increases podcast discoverability, boosts podcast SEO, and grows shows organically.

In 2023, marketers everywhere deemed TikTok as “the most engaging” social media platform. The video app boasts over 1.5 billion users who spend an average of 58 minutes PER DAY scrolling, sharing, liking, and connecting with creators.

TikTok presents a unique opportunity to grow podcasts and connect with audiences by harnessing the power of podcast videos. This blog post will walk podcasters through growing podcasts on TikTok. We’ll explain how TikTok works, how to best utilize the app as a podcast growth tool, and how to create podcast videos using Headliner’s Automatic Audiograms.

Getting ramped up to TikTok

Again, TikTok is huge! And, as the app is so young, it continues to grow, amassing a diverse, global audience.

TikTok offers creators, like podcasters, a unique space to grow their audience, boost discoverability, and enhance their marketing efforts.

A diverse, engaged audience

TikTok’s user base primarily reflects Gen Z. Audience members tend to be younger—the average user is under 34 years old—value inclusivity and are engaged by powerful yet concise storytelling.

Like the app, Gen Z is young! They are the youngest members of today’s workforce and are considered digital natives.

As digital natives, Gen Z is the first generation to have access to the Internet their entire lives. They are incredibly tech-savvy and have woven online communication, like social media, into their daily routine. Gen Z is a highly connected, plugged-in generation unlike any other.

Generation Z is also known for being among the most diverse and educated generations. As a result, it places heavy emphasis on inclusivity, social justice, and equality. Gen Z also emphasizes mental and physical well-being and is noted as being one of the most “open” generations.

Another fun fact about Gen Z? They LOVE podcasts! Many Gen Zers fall into the super listener category. 47% of Gen Z claim to listen to podcasts at least once per month. And they don’t just listen to an episode here and there—they really listen to podcasts. The average Gen Z listener consumes 7.7 hours of podcasts per week.

All these factors combined create a large, unique online audience primed for podcast discovery. Understanding the nuances of Gen Z helps podcasters better tailor and create content designed to capture ears and eyes worldwide. Simple things like uploading podcast videos to TikTok, adding captions, and using high-contrast colors simplify the discovery process and make content really pop for Gen Z.

Short-Form Content 101

TikTok is primarily known as a short-form content platform. The app does support longer-form content, up to 10 minutes, but audiences typically engage with less than one-minute content.

Source.

Even text on TikTok is short-form. The description can only contain 2.2k characters—about 400 words—including hashtags and mentions.

While 400 words may not seem like a lot of space, it does provide ample opportunity to boost a post’s searchability through SEO (search engine optimization). Being intentional and concise in post descriptions helps podcasters make the most out of each post. By adding relevant keywords and hashtags, podcasters can almost reverse engineer the discovery process to help organically grow podcasts.

Overall, TikTok’s emphasis on short-form, engaging content aligns perfectly with the current trends in digital media. Its short-form nature mirrors the attention and behaviors of its online audience, making it a powerful tool for podcasters looking to grow podcasts and enhance their marketing efforts.

Using TikTok for Podcast Growth

More and more, we are seeing online users treat social media platforms like search engines. Instead of going to Google (or other search engines), they turn to their favorite social media platform to connect, learn, and discover.

For example, 64% of Gen Z and 49% of Millennials use TikTok as a search tool. Additionally, 10% of Gen Z reports preferring TikTok over more established, traditional search engines when looking for information.

Uploading content to TikTok helps podcasters future-proof their marketing and SEO. As user behaviors shift from more traditional online mediums to newer, more connective platforms, getting podcast videos, like audiograms, onto TikTok is an investment in your show’s future.

Key TikTok search features

TikTok has several in-app features that allow creators to leverage SEO effortlessly, which is organic to app users.

TikTok users can search specific hashtags to help discover and find related content from a vast creator pool.

Unlike search engines, TikTok’s algorithm helps content rank based on relevancy and popularity. This is especially helpful for creators just starting their podcasting and/or TikTok journey.

The algorithm prioritizes specific pieces more equitably than other search options, too. Traditional search platforms emphasize a blend of factors such as credibility and account age, quality and length of content, search query relevancy, backlinks, competitive landscape, and more. Search engines also allow for paid content promotion, which can bury smaller or newer content sources. This makes it increasingly harder for new creators to get their content in front of audience members.

TikTok offers podcasters an easier path to discovery over traditional search engines. Offering hashtag search is an easy way for podcasters to start ranking for direct search results, like #podcast or #podcastseries.

All social media platforms have some form of keyword search baked into algorithms. However, the key differences between SEO across the different platforms lie in the audience behaviors.

Audience behaviors vary significantly across platforms. Topics and queries that perform well on one platform will likely perform poorly on others. Differences are primarily attributed to audience behaviors, search style, and platform trends.

Consider Gen Z. Gen Z is the first actual digital native generation. They have ample “Googling” experience and are typically more inclined to use more long-tail keywords than other generations. Why? Long tail keywords allow you to get more specific intent and naturally help refine search results.

Considering Gen Z is the primary audience found on TikTok, styling your content to match their search intent will help content searchability. Adding long-tail queries that directly answer “how to questions” helps TikTok define, rank, and push your podcast videos better.

Discover and FYP

TikTok also offers an in-app discovery page called the “For You Page” (FYP). The FYP showcases the TikTok algorithm’s work in real time!

TikTok’s FYP features personalized recommendations based on the users’ interests, engagement, interactions, and in-app browsing history. Combined, the FYP includes a mix of popular, trending videos, personalized recommendations, and curated content categories.

Regarding searchability, the FYP is one of TikTok’s most powerful discovery tools. As TikTok’s algorithm aims to keep users scrolling and engaged, the FYP matches relevant content to relevant eyes and ears.

Thanks to the FYP, podcasters of all sizes, bandwidths, and account age can be more easily discovered by relevant audiences.

Leveraging TikTok’s search in your favor

Now, considering what makes TikTok’s discoverability and algorithm, well, tick… let’s look at things podcasters can do to help SEO-proof their content!

  • Stay consistent—TikTok loves consistency. Keeping a regular posting cadence helps create accounts and makes posts relevant to the algorithm. It also increases your content’s odds of ranking on someone’s FYP
  • Create relevant content—Don’t post just for the sake of posting. While you should post consistently, you do not need to flood your account with uploads, hoping something sticks. Creating relevant content, like audiograms and podcast clips, increases the odds of user engagement, which goes a long way in helping current and future content get seen on TikTok.
  • #UseHashtags—Hashtags, like keywords, help TikTok better understand your video. Since TikTok and search engines can’t crawl video files, having relevant hashtags helps better inform the algorithm so it knows who and where to push to.
  • Name everything—Again, TikTok doesn’t technically understand your video. It just understands what you and others do with it. Naming and adding as much relevant information as possible to your posts helps TikTok really understand what you’re uploading. So, if you’re uploading a video or audio file to TikTok, name it! Ensuring file names align with search behaviors helps TikTok and boosts your SEO.
  • Be intentional—Especially when creating your TikTok presence, really think about the type of content you are making and how you would describe it. This will help you create quality content and relevant descriptions with appropriate hashtags. Doing this allows you to reverse engineer the search process to help ensure you create relevant, timely content that TikTok can categorize to feature on users’ FYP.

Creating content that TikTok can easily understand and categorize will help elevate your podcast’s searchability and boost podcast discoverability.

Creating Automatic Audiograms for TikTok: Headliner Style

Headliner offers podcasters an easy, automated solution to getting podcasts on TikTok. Its Automatic Audiograms feature allows podcasters to automatically post clips of their show to TikTok every time they publish a new episode.

The automation is easy and free for podcasters to use, too! Here’s how to automatically upload podcast videos to TikTok in an optimized way:

Step 1 – Create an automation

First thing first, you must log in (or create) to your Headliner account. Once you’re logged in, click the blue and purple “Automatic Audiograms” button.

Step 2 – Find your podcast

Next, you’ll need to search for and select a podcast. Either type the name of your show or drop in your RSS feed.

Step 3 – Select Destination

Now, you’ll want to go ahead and select TikTok as your destination. Then, select “TikTok post.”

Once you choose the destination and formatting, you’ll need to select how you get your podcast videos. Selecting “auto post” will allow Headliner to create and upload your podcast videos for you automatically. If you want to see the clip before posting it, you can control who sees the video first, too. You can also go back and change viewability later!

Selecting “email videos to me” will tell the Headliner to email you a link whenever your videos are created. Headliner will still automatically create videos; you must download and manually upload videos using this method.

Step 4 – Optimize your podcast videos

In this step, you can optimize your podcast videos!

Create evergreen yet dynamic captions using information from your RSS feed. Headliner can pull in parts of your metadata and add them to your captions every time.


To optimize your podcast videos, type a handful of relevant hashtags at the end of the caption box!

You can also toggle who can see and interact with posts. If you are promoting branded content, you can add disclaimers.

Step 5 – Create podcast clips with AI

The next step is to tell Headliner how you want to create clips. Let Headliner’s AI batch create up to 10 clips or use existing soundbite tags in your RSS feed.

From here, you can only create videos for your most recent and future episodes. However, if you’d like to create and upload clips from your back catalog, you can adjust the automation on the projects page. More on that here.

Step 6 – Design your podcast videos

Here, you can start designing your awesome podcast videos! Select one of our pre-existing options or create your own from scratch. You can even connect your Canva account to “make” more complex designs.

Step 7 – Start growing your podcast on TikTok!

That’s all! Your automation will get to work creating and promoting your podcast on TikTok.

Growing your podcast on TikTok with Headliner

TikTok is a powerful platform for podcast promotion. With a massive, highly engaged audience, it presents a unique opportunity to boost podcast discoverability effortlessly.

Headliner provides podcasters with an easy-to-use tool for automatically uploading podcast videos to TikTok. Headliner’s Automatic Audiograms automate the creation and upload process to save podcasters time. Automatic Audiograms allow podcasters to consistently create quality content without adding more to their plate.

To learn more or get started with your TikTok journey, visit make.headliner.app.