Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:06 Hello and welcome back to the audience podcast. I'm Craig Hewitt, your host from Costos. Well, it's been a, a a wild couple of weeks, I think regardless of where you are in the world. Uh, all of us are facing a lot of changes with our lives professionally, personally, socially with the Corona virus or covert 19 scare that we're all going through. And, uh, and I think in this episode I want to talk a little bit about that and what it means to, to us as podcasters. Our, our goal here with the podcast is to do what we can to help folks cope with the crisis that we're all going through. Get through these hard times and hopefully come out on the other side better. Uh, I know that there's not a lot we can do. Those of us that are confined to our houses are sheltering in place.
Speaker 1 00:51 Cats, uh, go out and do things, can't see our friends and family can't go to work maybe. And so we're, we're home. And that's, that's the reality of it. I think that's something that we talk about in our family is that, that we have no control over this situation and that maybe is one of the most frustrating things. But what we can do is kind of look internally and say, okay, I'm here, I'm with, you know, my family or my loved ones and we're going to be here for the next a couple of weeks or a couple of months. I don't know. Um, and, and we have to try to make the best of it in this time. Um, I think we can all get caught in the really vicious news cycle and social media whirlwind that, that we all can very easily get caught up in. And a lot of us do.
Speaker 1 01:33 And I think that's important to stay informed and, and see what's going on in the world. But I also think that that maybe a media diet is called for in times like this, you know, checking that, checking the news a couple times a day maybe, and letting the rest of your day be, be filled with things that, that give us fulfillment and purpose and solace. Uh, and so that's something that I'm trying to do personally. And just wanting to share that with everybody here is maybe, uh, instead of always being caught up in the news, maybe, you know, take our dedicated time for, for consuming the news, uh, lamenting kind of morning maybe about the situation and then hopefully trying to move on a bit with our days to say, okay, what else can I do with my days? I can spend time with my family and my loved ones.
Speaker 1 02:13 I can spend time on kind of personal development and maybe fitness if you're able to get outside, um, and, and maybe, you know, get, get working on our podcast. Um, and, and that's kind of what we wanted to talk about today a bit is you know, what folks are facing with, with their podcasts in the midst of, of these crazy times, you know, are you, are you podcasting more? Are you podcasting less? Are you seeing changes to listenership as a result of this? Um, personally I think that podcasting will go up in terms of the amount of content created, but that maybe listenership will go down because a lot of people listen to podcasts in their cars or at the gym or doing something outside. And for a lot of us were just not able to do a lot of that these days. So I think it makes sense if you're seeing listenership go down and this time that you're probably not alone.
Speaker 1 03:04 I think you have some of the news we're seeing in the industry supports that. And um, and that's, that's perfectly fair. But I do think now is the time, especially if we're all home and don't have a lot of the other things in our lives that that normally kind of take up our time that there'll be, could put it towards podcasting, get ahead in our production schedule, create some really great content for our audience that, that maybe is looking for something different now. And maybe a once kind of life gets back to normal. Uh, you'll have content ready for folks who, who are able to consume it then in back to their normal schedules. So this is a really challenging time for all of us and our hearts and our thoughts are with all of you. Uh, as we go through this, myself and our team were remote teams, so we're fortunately able to work as normal, but it certainly is affecting our, our personal lives and our ability to kind of emotionally cope with it.
Speaker 1 03:54 Um, but I hope that everybody out there is healthy and happy and as safe as possible, uh, during these times. Something else I wanted to mention is that, uh, since we all are, are kind of being a bit more introspective these days, uh, we're going to be doing a Q and a episode here coming up next week. So this episode will go out on Thursday, March 26th and that week between March 26th and the 2nd of April, we'll be taking your questions and answering them live on the podcast. So if you have questions about your podcast or podcasting in general or Corona virus, or really anything else relating to kind of the time we're in and the situation and how you should be thinking about your podcast, please send us a message. Hello at <inaudible> dot com or drop a comment in the post for this episode. We'd love to hear from you, answer your questions, and provide our insights to, uh, to kind of what, what you're seeing, what you're thinking about, what you're worrying about with your podcasts.
Speaker 1 04:49 And we'll answer a handful of questions on the next episode. So please hit us up on email. Hello at <inaudible> dot com on social media at castoffs HQ on Twitter, or drop a comment in the post for this episode. So last week, the folks from Edison research and Triton digital released their annual infinite dial survey results. So every year, uh, these, these teams get together and put out a massive survey that cover a lot of the trends in digital media consumption. Uh, going back to, to starting this in 1998 so talking about all sorts of online media, podcasting, social media, uh, smart speaker consumption, which we'll talk about in more detail. And this survey is about a 1500 people that are randomly sampled from the United States. And the idea here is to get, uh, some, some data points around trends and consumption patterns of, of kind of the general public for us, particularly as podcasters to think about how our audience is moving, how they're consuming, um, where they're consuming and things like that so that we can stay on top of, of kind of where our audience is and where they're going to tailor our efforts to, to match that.
Speaker 1 06:01 So a link to the full webinar replay in the show notes for this episode, <inaudible> dot com slash podcast but I wanted to highlight some of the things that, that myself and our team pulled away from, from watching this presentation. Um, and the first one that, that I thought was really interesting had to do with smart speakers and it was that kind of awareness for smart speakers. So Amazon Alexa and things like that have gone down one percentage from 2019 to 2020 around 78 79%. Um, so, so I think we could call this flat. So the awareness of the smart speaker market for the general public will say is flat. Um, they did see an increase in ownership of smart speakers from 23 to 27% in 2020, which, which represents about 76 million people. Uh, similarly, the number of speakers in a given home went up from 2018 at 1.7 on average to two in 2019 to 2.2 in 2020.
Speaker 1 06:59 So I think this trend is, is going at the same kind of trajectory that we saw it in the last few years. Folks are buying more speakers, but the overall kind of awareness of them is not going up a lot. Currently 55% of people own two or more speakers and their homes. And so I think as podcasters, this is a way that, that, that we can think about are we creating content that can be consumed as a family? Are we creating content that that can and should be consumed at home while people are, are uh, you know, doing the dishes or hanging out or you know, spending time with their families, things like that. The opportunity here from our perspective is thinking about environment specific podcast content. So, so someone's cooking dinner, they might say, Alexa, play, you know, my favorite cooking podcast. Uh, and hopefully that's you.
Speaker 1 07:47 Or if they're getting ready to go to bed at night, they might want something really smooth and calming and they might say AMA, Amazon, play, um, the nighttime ritual podcast or whatever it is. And so I think that this is something that is really new in terms of mindset for us is to think about environmentally based podcasting and the consumption of our, of our listeners and consumption patterns of our listeners may be changing to say it's not just in the car on the way to work, which is what I think of most podcasts listening as because that's when I listen to most podcasts. But it could be at their homes and when they're doing things and they might have listening patterns that are contextually linked with kind of physically where they are in life. A Amazon Alexa is definitely kind of the, the King of the smart speaker world over Google home.
Speaker 1 08:31 Uh, and so I think that in terms of submitting your podcast to directories, the, the two big ones in terms of smart speaker market are tune in, in any pod. Uh, if you're not in these, um, in these directories, then you could be missing out on a lot of smart speaker consumption. For your listeners. Moving onto social media. This is an area that I know a lot of our listeners spend a lot of their marketing efforts and rightfully so. I think specifically in certain niches, and we talked about this in some of our very early episodes, social media is a fantastic way to connect with your audience and grow your listenership, uh, and really kind of create that connection between the podcast, your audience and that ongoing two way dialogue that you can have with folks. Uh, and the interesting trend in growth with social media is Instagram not surprising.
Speaker 1 09:18 I think for a lot of us that are kind of tuned into social media usage patterns, things like Facebook are mostly flat. Um, but Instagram is up from in 2018 36%, 2019 39% and in 2020 41%. And as far as our podcast goes, I think this gives us the justification to put a lot of our promotional content on Instagram. And the best one that we've seen is this in the form of audiograms and specifically at Castillo's with our integration with headliner creating these audiogram videos. To post on social media and especially on Instagram can be a really great way to connect with your audience, grow your listenership by, by showing them useful and interesting content that they then will go and check out your podcast afterwards. Uh, the newcomer to the block here is tick-tock, which is a kind of short form video social media platform.
Speaker 1 10:09 It's a new player to the market but it's showing 11% share here, especially amongst the younger demographics. So if you have a large proportion of your audience that is in the younger demographic, say below 30, it might be worth checking out tech talk as a way for you to connect with your audience, uh, and share some promotional content there around your podcast content. We'll link to TechTalk in the show notes for this episode as well. <inaudible> dot com slash podcast in terms of messaging, the one that really jumped out at me was a WhatsApp growth in the kind of younger age group. And so in, in the infinite dial survey they had kind of three traunches of of age groups. One is 12 to 34, 35 to 55 and the 55 plus and they saw a growth in WhatsApp adoption in the 12 to 34 age group from 23% to 29%.
Speaker 1 11:03 And so I think this is a really interesting way for us maybe to create that two way dialogue and ready access to you maybe in the form of like a WhatsApp group. So I think a lot of us think about like Facebook groups or Slack groups. Uh, and it might be time to think about a WhatsApp group for, for your audience or maybe a small percentage of your audience may be on an application only basis. Um, this would be a really high touch, intimate kind of way to connect with your audience. But if you're not on Slack, if you don't want to be on Facebook, uh, WhatsApp is obviously mobile first and could be a really good way to connect with your audience. Uh, I'm a member of a couple of pretty large WhatsApp groups and they're great. They can get really busy, but I think that as content graders, this is great.
Speaker 1 11:44 I mean, this is what we're looking for is a way to connect with our audience really easily where they're already doing the rest of their content creation and engagement on a social basis. Especially now, right? A lot of us can't go see other people, can't go to the office, can't go to our local sports meetups or whatever. Um, and so maybe creating a WhatsApp group, especially right now is the thing to do is say, Hey, this is just where we're going to chat since we can't get together in person. Uh, WhatsApp is, is a great way to do that virtually instead of, instead of in person, maybe, maybe just right now, maybe in the future as well. Again, for the younger demographic, seeing what is probably a predictable good increase in live stream video gaming, um, year over year. And so I think if you're in this niche, this is something that's not surprising, um, but should give you a lot of confidence.
Speaker 1 12:33 Stay cool. I'm going to stay in this niche and keep going with it. Uh, I think this is something that we'll continue to see growing year over year. And folks that are again in this niche are aligned with it for their content, should definitely consider, you know, staying the course and taking advantage of this trend. So the infinite dial survey is not just about podcasting but it's about online audio listening and this is things like podcasting, AMFM radio and other kinds of audio based content that that might not be podcasting specifically. Uh, and in this kind of general online audio listening category, the biggest growth driver in terms of demographics they saw was the 35 to 55 and the 55 plus, uh, genres. I think millennials and some of the younger folks where some of the early adopters of podcasting and some of the biggest champions of it.
Speaker 1 13:19 Now we're starting to see as it becomes more mainstream, a bit of the older generations listening and becoming aware and consuming content online as opposed to traditional radio. And the two big platforms that have grown the most here are Pandora and iHeartRadio in turn. Again, in terms of kind of general online audio, so not specifically podcasting but just online audio. The newcomer that really surprised a lot of people is Amazon music. Uh, this is where I consume my audio. I, I don't do Spotify. I don't do Pandora, um, just for music. Um, but Amazon music is fantastic. If you're on Amazon prime, uh, you have more access than, than kind of regular Amazon, uh, subscribers. And so, uh, at this point, Amazon music constitutes 8% of all online audio listening. But if you have a smart speaker that goes up to 15%, I think this makes sense.
Speaker 1 14:10 Uh, as we talked about before, folks could say, you know, Alexa, play me the Beatles or Alexa, play me the audience podcast. Um, and so it's just logical to think that if you have a smart speaker from Amazon that Amazon based content could be the way that you'll be consuming that specific to the 12 to 34 year old age group. It's not a surprise that Spotify is the big winner here with the highest growth, uh, percentage and gross growth since last year. And they're topping out at the percentage of people listening in the last week at 22% for Spotify. And so I think that, you know, the, the point here is if your, if your show is not on Spotify, get it on Spotify, right? You're missing obviously, you know, maybe a quarter of your addressable market, especially in the younger demographic. We'll include a link for how to submit your podcast to Spotify in the show notes for this episode if you haven't done it already.
Speaker 1 15:02 If you're a dos customer, this is directly integrated into your account. It's just a one click submit and it's instantaneous. In terms of listening modalities, uh, you know, a lot of people listen to podcasts on their phones when they're exercising in the car or you know, taking a walk. The one place that I think a lot of people are looking to in the future is direct integration into cars. Uh, so podcasting live streaming or, or being downloaded directly into your, your cars, smart media system, uh, that hasn't happened yet. So it doesn't look like that is a modality adoption trend that we're seeing just yet. Uh, I do anticipate this happening in the future where platforms like Android or potentially Amazon or potentially Apple getting in with car manufacturers to put their products directly into the media systems and cars podcasting as a natural way to do that.
Speaker 1 15:54 We're just not seeing it yet. And in fact, listenership, uh, via mobile phone is up from 41% to 45%. So again, it's, it's by far the biggest way that people listen to podcasts and in fact a listenership via mobile phone up from 41% last year to, in 2020, 45%. So this kind of confirms our suspicion that this is where people are consuming content, especially on the go is via their phone. So getting into the podcast specific numbers, uh, I know this is what everybody is here for. The trend of podcast adoption is continuing, which is great news for all of us. Uh, at this point, 75% or 212 million folks in the U S have heard of podcasting. Um, 55% up from 51% last year, uh, have listened to a podcast and that's 155 million people. Uh, and on a monthly basis, the number of people that said they listened to a podcast in the last month up from 32% at 37% or 104 plus million folks in the U S demographically on an on a gender basis, uh, up slightly for men from 36 to 39%, but up seven percentage points for women, uh, almost achieving kind of gender parody here from 29 to 36%.
Speaker 1 17:07 Um, so I think for all the gals out there, um, this is a great opportunity for female hosted shows or female centric content to really serve this growth in listenership. Um, I, you know, I think a lot of women out there looking for content specific to, to them and their wants and desires and pains and needs and, uh, if you're able to serve that, I think that you're in a unique opportunity to, uh, to kind of ride this wave of, of a lot more women consuming podcasts. One of the big picture themes we talk about is podcast consumption being a zero sum game for our listeners. What I mean by this is there are only so many hours in a week that our listeners can tune into a podcast. Uh, this is again, most folks, it's exercising and commuting and maybe some time at home, uh, for everybody it's going to be a little bit different, but the idea is there is a fixed amount of time in our lives.
Speaker 1 17:59 Um, and we'll say this is outside of coronavirus time, uh, that, that we typically listen to podcasts. And on average for the folks in the U S that is about six and a half hours a week. So, uh, and this number has been flat for the last three years. And so what we take away from this is if you are hoping to get new listeners to your show, you're going to do one of two things. One is to grow the number of people overall that listen to podcasts. So expanding the market from a listenership perspective or, and this is more difficult, taking away listeners from other shows. And we talked to Jack reciter from dark net diaries. Uh, he, he kind of mentioned the idea around this, which is that, you know, people are not going to listen to okay podcast, they're going to listen to great podcasts and they're going to turn okay podcasts off in favor of going to listen to another type of show because they only have so many podcasting hours in a week or podcast listening hours in a week.
Speaker 1 18:55 And if your show is not great, they're going to go find another one. There's enough shows out there that, that people can, will be going to, to kind of find that next best show. Uh, and so for us as content creators, it's really kind of upping the game and the expectations for us a little bit to know that, you know, if I want to get more listeners, I need to make the pie bigger, if you will, or I need to steal a part of a pie piece away from someone else. And that's just another show which I think is more difficult. So the onus is on us as content creators and as kinda champions of this media to, to increase awareness of podcasting in general. Um, and that is probably the easiest way to translate into increased listenership for your show. And I think the last, you know, kind of short term thing to mention here again around Corona virus is that that people's listening patterns and their media consumption patterns in general have changed.
Speaker 1 19:49 Thinking about myself and maybe think about how you're consuming media these days. And in fact, I spoke with someone who writes a very popular, uh, set of articles on medium. Um, and, and they said that unless coronavirus or Covin 19 is in the title that that people are not consuming it these days. Um, and so I think that, you know, for me, my media consumption is around, uh, Corona virus kind of locally and regionally where I am at globally. You're kind of how, how, you know, my country and other countries are doing. Um, and then, uh, a bit about around kind of the financial markets and what the economy is doing just because, you know, personally and professionally, it impacts and impacts me. And I think that's a lot of people and I don't have, again, talking about like consumption time of media. I don't have a lot more physical time and I don't have a lot more kind of emotional energy to consume other, other types of, of content these days.
Speaker 1 20:42 So, uh, most of my media consumption is around coronavirus and what it means for me and my family and our business. And so I think if, if you're looking to create new content right now today, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be around coronavirus specifically, but I think people are kind of in news mode and maybe more frequent updates. Uh, so, so if you're able to create content about, you know, Corona virus or its effects on people socially in your area, that that might be a good, uh, thing to look at. So I really enjoyed watching the infant Adele presentation from the folks at Edison research and try and digital will link to the full webinar replay in the show notes for this episode as well. So you can check it out. But I wanted to, to kind of pull away some of the things that I found most interesting in terms of the, the changes in the trends and consumption of podcast and kind of on my online media consumption across the board and specifically what we think it means for us and for you as, as podcasters.
Speaker 1 21:44 So, so I hope you found that helpful. And again, we are going to be answering questions in our next podcast episodes. The next episode is going to be a Q and a episode. If you have questions for us about podcasting, anything goes, shoot us a message. Hello at <inaudible> dot com Twitter at <inaudible> HQ or on our Facebook page. Just drop us a note there. We'd love to hear from you and answer any questions you have. As always, if you're enjoying the show, we would love for you to share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. Just kinda helps a, as we talked about growing the pie, increasing awareness for podcasting, and hopefully getting more folks into this awesome medium. I hope everyone out there is happy and healthy and safe. I know these are challenging times. Uh, we will get through this, uh, and there will be a bright sunshine on the other end. I think it just takes a little bit of time. So, uh, best of luck to everybody and if we can do anything to help, please let us.
People are consuming more news and talk content during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
27% of Americans own a smart speaker in 2020. Majority of these owners use Amazon Alexa as their preferred device.
Facebook continues to be the most used social media platform but newcomers like TikTok and WhatsApp are exploding with growth. Both TikTok and WhatsApp are counted within the “Other” category.
Spotify is the most popular platform for online audio listening. 
An estimated 104 million Americans listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. 
