Find Podcast Guests and Sponsors

A job title does not prove someone will make a useful podcast guest. A recent interview, talk, or clear public explanation gives you much better evidence.

The same research can find sponsors whose products already overlap with your listeners.

SocialListeningAPI searches public posts on YouTube, LinkedIn, and X and Google results for the phrases you choose. It returns normalized records with source URLs.

Step 1: Define guest and sponsor searches

Create a SocialListeningAPI account and claim the 100 free credits. Write separate query groups for guests and sponsors.

Guest searches:

• B2B customer research interview
• developer marketing conference talk
• founder podcast data privacy
• AI agent reliability presentation

Sponsor searches:

• launched developer analytics platform
• sponsoring SaaS conference
• marketing to data teams
• new product for indie developers

Step 2: Search to find podcast guests and sponsors

for endpoint in \
  youtube/search-posts \
  linkedin/search-posts \
  x/search-posts \
  google/search
do
  curl --get "https://api.sociallisteningapi.com/api/v1/$endpoint" \
    --data-urlencode 'query=B2B customer research interview' \
    --header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY'
done

One query across four sources costs 5 credits. The YouTube search API finds public videos, Shorts, and live streams. Use the API docs for other endpoint details. The MCP can run these searches inside Claude or ChatGPT.

Step 3: Split the results into two lists

For guests, store expertise, speaking evidence, source URL, recent topic, and possible episode angle. For sponsors, store company, audience overlap, product, source URL, and possible placement.

Grouping and storage happen outside SocialListeningAPI. Do not put someone on both lists unless the evidence supports both roles.

Step 4: Review the evidence

Watch or read the source. A guest should explain the topic clearly and add something your audience cannot get from a basic search. A sponsor should serve the audience without creating an obvious editorial conflict.

Use a separate enrichment tool to find public contact details.

Step 5: Send a specific invitation

For guests, propose one topic and explain why their recent work fits. For sponsors, share the audience, format, dates, placement, disclosure, and price.

Conclusion

Keep the guest and sponsor searches separate from the beginning. They need different evidence and different outreach.

Two short sourced lists are enough: people who can teach the topic and companies with a believable audience overlap.

Continue with Find YouTube Reviewers for a Product Launch.

Written by ShashFounder at sociallisteningapi, focused on product and growth