Going to The Podcast Show is an opportunity to take the pulse of the podcast industry and uncover the latest market trends. It’s a place where you encounter familiar faces, exchange greetings from a distance, and sometimes have closer interactions. 👋
One part of the Ausha Team, from left to right: Irene, me (Emma), Maxime, and Jennifer.
Here’s an exclusive look at what I learned from The Podcast Show! 👇
Video podcasting is THE hot topic right now 🎬
Proof of this: over the course of two days, five conferences were dedicated to video and YouTube. This trend is a significant challenge for podcasters who feel somewhat lost.
I knew that YouTube had become a major platform for podcast listening. I’ve mentioned this many times in my blog posts on Ausha 🚀. Like in this article about How to do a Podcast on YouTube.
However, I hadn’t realized how essential recording video sessions has become for a podcast’s success! It’s crucial not only for promoting the podcast with video snippets but also for sharing full episodes on YouTube.
During the conference titled “The Future of Podcasting,” one of the speakers boldly stated that RSS feeds are no longer the only way for a podcast to be heard, citing YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. 😬
He emphasized that some people will only consume your podcast through these new platforms. A real wake-up call. 👋
Podcasts have HUGE potential for brands 🤜🤛
The two-day event kicked off with a conference by Sounds Profitable, led by Tom Webster. The topic: the state of monetization in the podcast industry.
After attending this conference, I genuinely wondered how companies can overlook the enormous potential of podcasts for their brands. 🤔
(And I’m not just saying that because I’m working in this industry, I promise!)
There is tremendous potential for them:
👉 As content creators.
👉 As partners with these new media/influencers to promote their products and services.
👉 And finally, as advertising spaces with smart, unique ads that are different from what we’re used to hearing on TV or radio.
Tom Webster then showed that brands have a real reason to invest in podcasts because:
- 65% of podcast listeners are more likely to look up information about a product or service they hear about on a podcast (compared to 60% on YouTube or 54% on streaming TV).
- 41% of listeners are open to listening to a podcast about their favorite brand.
- 9% of podcast listeners who hear an ad take action (compared to 3% for a TV or YouTube ad).
And for podcasters who say, ‘But my listeners don’t want ads‘, Tom Webster shared more data:
48% of podcast listeners like or don’t mind the ads in the podcasts they listen to.
AI for translating podcasts and going international 🤖
Of course, AI was mentioned in every conference.
It’s a hot topic for the entire industry, whether for boosting promotion or writing metadata.
AI was also highlighted as a tool to help podcasters reach a global audience. 🌎
Text-to-speech and audio/video translation technologies are becoming more accurate and powerful. Even better, listeners are open to the idea of listening to content translated by AI. 🎧
This is a huge opportunity for podcasters who want to expand their reach. 💪
Social media remains a crucial tool for podcast discoverability 📱
That hasn’t changed.
I attended an interesting BBC conference explaining how they promote their podcasts through social media. Beyond video snippets (or even full episodes on some platforms) discussed earlier 👆, the standout takeaway was how the BBC uses Instagram’s “Explore” feed.
We often focus on posts that appear in our followers’ feeds, but many users engage with Instagram’s “Explore” function. Instead of just bringing content to our followers, we need to attract Instagram users to our content.
This shift in promotion strategy means creating more evocative, perhaps more human, or at least more eye-catching images to stand out in the suggested content grid. 🖼️
How to Boost Word-of-Mouth for Your Podcast? 👄👂
During a BBC conference on their podcasts, Grace Jasper (Research Manager – BBC Sounds, Radio 4 & 4Extra) and Georgie Cavendish (Senior Audience Planner – BBC Sounds) highlighted the top two discoverability drivers for their shows: word-of-mouth and peer recommendations.
This left me speechless. 🙊 How can we improve something we have so little control over?
The answer might lie in focusing on promo swaps, one of the best levers for increasing word-of-mouth. TINK Media excels at this: promo swaps, being a guest on other shows, asking for reviews, joining a network, and creating host-read ads for other shows. These actionable strategies can significantly boost word-of-mouth and peer recommendations.
I’m definitely going to dive deeper into this. 🚀
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Of course, I couldn’t attend all the conferences at The Podcast Show. Maybe one day we’ll have a time-turner to catch all the presentations! ✨🪄
In the meantime, I’m leaving with a ton of inspiration and plenty to share with you through blog articles. 💪
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