Omar ZenhomAward Winning Entrepreneur. Founder of The $100 MBA & WebinarNinja.

Steven Bartlett Told Me This

10 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this clip, Omar Zenhom recounts a conversation with fellow podcaster Steven Bartlett (referred to as Steven Barlow) about leveraging short‑form video platforms—Instagram and TikTok—as the primary top‑of‑funnel channel for podcast growth. Steven explains that these platforms serve as a "trial" space where audiences discover a podcast, decide if they want to invest deeper, and then move to the long‑form episode. The key indicator of success is audience engagement in the form of comments asking for the full episode, its title, or how to learn more. Instagram and TikTok therefore earn attention, while the podcast itself captures the listener’s longer‑form time.

Chapters

I met Steven Barlow in person and he told me as a fellow podcaster, you got to get into short-form video. It's how my show grew so fast. He told me that Instagram and TikTok were the top of the funnel for him. It's how people discovered his podcast, not through a podcast app. Instagram is not where you promote your podcast. It's where your podcast gets trialed. It's where people decide if they want your podcast. A good way to know if you are doing this right on Instagram or TikTok is that you should see comments below your video that ask, where is the full episode? What's the title of this episode? How can I learn more? This means they like what they tasted and want more, and they want to go in depth in the full episode. Instagram earns the attention. The podcast earns you the next 20 minutes or to an hour or whatever, how long your podcast is.