Building A Podcast Community

What does it mean to build a community around a podcast?

Matthew Butler built a podcast about drug and alcohol addiction into a 500 downloads-per-episode show that brought a major event to his home city of Hull.

He leveraged celebrities and influencers like Liberty X singer Michelle Heaton and BBC Radio London presenter Claira Hermet to help get his podcast in front of a bigger audience.

And with some impressive stats under his belt, Matthew quickly persuaded service commissioners at Hull City Council to invest in what he was doing.

Our service manager heard the podcast, she was over the moon with it... Our marketing budget quickly doubled, once they saw what we was doing and when we told them what resources we needed.

Episode Guest: Matthew Butler

Matthew Butler stumbled into addiction support work in his early 20s.

He soon shed his naivety about addiction and is now the Community Lead at addiction recovery support service Change Grow Live Hull.

The idea of a podcast emerged during the pandemic when lockdown meant that addicts in recovery were unable to access support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Lapses and relapses surged.

Believe In People tells the stories of people from all walks of life who are in recovery.

Matthew tells The Content Mavericks Club how his show overcame early challenges, the key factors in growing the show, and how teh podcast is promoted and marketed.

Matthew Butler features on The Content Mavericks Club podcast, hosted by Creative Kin CEO Jason Caffrey