While traditional celebrities often gain their fans offline, it is typical for new media celebrities (i.e. social media influencers) to accumulate their fans online from the start. With this advantage over traditional celebrities, influencers can cross-post content on different platforms (i.e., YouTube, Instagram, Twitter), because most of their fans know where to look for new content. Influencers’ careers rely on the continuous and routine output of digital content, so they are in a position to successfully cross-post across different platforms while still maintaining and growing their audience.

A prime example of cross-posting is the 40-minute long “Views” podcast hosted by popular YouTubers David Dobrik and Jason Nash. Each podcast gives fans a behind-the-scenes look into David and Jason’s lives. By advertising their podcast in their vlogs and sharing exclusive stories on each episode, David and Jason are able to turn YouTube viewers into returning “Views” listeners, which has allowed “Views” to reach over 1 million listeners per episode and to consistently chart within the top 10 comedy podcasts on Apple Podcasts.

In addition to posting weekly episodes, David and Jason have performed live podcast shows in cities across the United States, which further bridges the gap between online and offline fan engagement. These live performances are unique in two ways. First, the live shows are not uploaded online, which makes them exclusive to the attendees. Second, the live shows allow David and Jason to connect to their pre-existing audiences. These two unique aspects are important to the sustained success of the podcast because they create an experience that fans can be involved in rather than just listen to.

Recently, David and Jason have started posting video recordings of podcast episodes on their “Views Podcast” YouTube channel, which means that fans are encouraged to subscribe to all “Views” related platforms if they want to get the full content experience. This approach (i.e. cross-posting) has expanded their viewer/listenership from platform-to-platform, adding new listeners and turning them into fans along the way.