Power Listeners, Rather than Charts, Key to Maximizing Podcast Discovery

If you have any avid podcast listeners in your life, you may have noticed that they love talking about the shows they listen to.  Whether it’s telling another listener about a new podcast they’re listening to, or dropping interesting things they’ve heard into everyday conversation, it isn’t difficult to get them sharing their passion with others.

And the more they listen, the happier they are to share.  In The Canadian Podcast Listener 2019, we wanted to see the relationship between heavier listening and more sharing, and the results were as you might expect.

One third of light podcast listeners (<2hrs/wk) had shared a podcast they listened to via word of mouth in the past six months.  When it comes to Power Listeners (5+ hrs/wk), that nearly doubles with almost two-thirds of Power Listeners acting as pro-bono cheerleaders for the podcasts they love.

Sure enough, when we turn the tables and ask monthly podcast listeners to tell us how they discover podcasts, word of mouth tops the list, with 41% saying they get their new podcast recommendations from friends and family. Next is social media, online word of mouth if you like, at 35%. Near the bottom of the list is iTunes charts and listings, with just 9% of monthly podcast listeners saying that’s how they typically discover new podcasts, while 18% say they find out about them from other podcast websites and apps.

What does this mean for content creators? Well, if you’ve listened to even a single podcast, you’ve likely heard the host say: “If you’d like to support the show, rate or review us on iTunes.”  While charts from iTunes and other podcast apps are contributing to discovery, you’re creating great content that your listeners enjoy—why not ask them to support the show by sharing something they heard with a friend? 

They’re talking about the podcasts they listen to anyway, so why not encourage them to talk about yours?

Take it a few steps further by engaging them in as many ways that you can, through live shows, soliciting their input, effectively building a community around them. You never know. You might just turn your passionate Power Listeners into evangelists for your podcast.

The Canadian Podcast Listener Study 2019 is co-published by Signal Hill Insights and Ulster Media, with support from The Podcast Exchange (TPX). Results are based on online surveys using a market representative sample of more than 4,500 Canadian adults from Maru Voice Canada. A free summary report of top-line findings from this year’s study is available here.