Podcasting is not new to us, but this industry has started flourishing in recent months. Data says that only a portion as small as 22% of Americans were aware of podcasts. However, by 2020, 70-75% of US adults use this medium. The reason behind podcasts being so popular is that they are easy to consume and suitable for both personal and professional topics.
People use podcasts for various purposes. Some use them for professional purposes like learning how to grow their business, learning new marketing skills, or learning new tactics for investment. Some people listen to podcasts to learn how to meditate, write, or sing!
It is a very diverse platform to share and acquire knowledge. The podcast industry is going to grow even more in the year 2020 as companies start realizing that podcasts are a great means to market their products and services.
Read further to discover the top 10 podcast trends for 2020 to know how to survive in this increasingly competitive space of content creation and marketing.
Competition between podcasting platforms will increase: Spotify and Apple already had a tough competition going on between them since forever. But this year, more podcasting platforms are ready to give these two a tough fight. Data has shown that people ranging from the age group of 13 to 34 have preferred listening more to Spotify than Apple.
It is predicted that Spotify will have acquired the sole attention of 328-348 million of the total listeners by the end of 2020. However, this is just a prediction and the rivals will also try their best to win this battle by producing more content and be more creative to attract a large fanbase. This will benefit the listeners more because of the competition. More will be the quality and quantity of the content for the audience.
Listener’s growth: Listenership of podcasts has sustainably increased over the years. And regular listener count keeps growing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
There are millions of new listeners and hence, they demand a lot of new content. The number of shows listened per person and the total time spent on it, both are consistently increasing. Now as the majority of podcast listeners are young and educated, they are very valuable for advertisers, as they have a lot of disposable income and because they trust these podcasts and their hosts. Considering all these points, the audience would make the perfect target audience of marketers.
More podcasting live-streaming events: Live shows have the capacity for bringing together the listeners, marketers, and hosts which could help the podcasters make better connections while the industry grows.
One such company that hosts podcast events and live shows is Podcast Movement. Such networking events give podcasters a chance to meet some influential content creators, fellow podcasters, and niche brands. Just like any other professional meetups and conferences, these events have a high potential for imparting knowledge to the new content creators and discussing strategies for better content creation and promotion.
Podcasts will optimize for voice search: Voice search is being widely accepted recently and over half of searches are done by voice search so far in 2020. Google has announced that they will also add podcasts in Google Search results so that it becomes easy to listen to podcasts directly from the search results page. You can even save the episodes if you want to. In addition to that, Google Podcasts have started transcribing their podcasts automatically. This makes it even easier to search for keywords. You can also make use of online applications like Maestra to transcribe your podcast, if you’re hosted on Buzzsprout, Libsyn, or other such platforms.
By focusing more on “podcast SEO,” podcasters can make the most out of this new opportunity that is about to revolutionize the world of podcasting. Voice search SEO is going to help you target the audience who prefer voice search for online surfing. Also, people are getting more and more comfortable using voice-enabled devices, and that can be a great opportunity for podcasters to increase audience engagement and brand awareness.
Corporate podcasts, a new trend: Podcasts have started becoming equally essential to the companies as the blogs have been. There has been a 230% growth in podcasting business over the year, and that is on Podbean itself.
Every business would want to have a podcast of their own to reach out to the general public, and so, there will be a high demand for quality podcast production among these companies. They will want high-quality podcasts, no matter if they’re internal podcasts or external ones. Another trend that can be predicted is the companies will provide corporate training to their employees via media-on-demand podcasts so that even the remote employees can have access to them.
Going global: Podcasting ecosystems are going to outgrow the English-speaking market pretty soon. China itself has 500 million listeners for Ximalaya. Apart from that, India and Brazil are the new promising markets for the podcast industry for both- content and audience. There will be a huge rise in the number of global listeners by this year as people discover and listen to podcasts for the first time.
New niches for podcasting will appear: last year saw a lot of podcasting trends appear and that opened up many opportunities to new niches like climate change, tiny houses, zero-waste living, or vegan diets. Almost all of these topics are related to sustainable living but these aren’t the only hot topics that could be around in 2020. There is going to be a surge of podcasts with new niches very soon.
There are fewer than a million podcasts available right now. That opens up the possibility of podcasting about thousands of other undiscovered niches such as biology podcasts or history podcasts. Also, if you start early, you might have an advantage over others. Micro Casts are going to be one of the best ways to promote yourself through short content.
The marketing budget for podcasting will increase: Podcasting does have a bright future and hence, new businesses can’t ignore their potential. For years now companies have used conventional media like blogs, emails, and social media for marketing but now the budget for podcasting as a part of their marketing strategy.
We will be seeing more brands turning towards podcasting and spending more on podcast production. Most of them will be using podcasting for the first time. A simple logic behind podcasts being the perfect medium is that more than half of the listeners fall in the income group of $250000 or higher. These are the people that companies want to target for promoting their products and services. Hence, more brands will spend extra on lead generation and sales through podcasting.
A better understanding of podcast listeners will aid in data-driven decisions: Yes, by understanding the audience, marketers, and podcasters will be able to provide a better user experience. Genre-wise consumption of podcasts can help you understand the type of content most listeners prefer listening to.
These were some of the trends that the podcasting industry is going to see in 2020. Apart from these trends, there will also be more podcasting apps that offer new and innovative features to their listeners. Smart speakers are also about to become a hit in the market of gadgets as they can be used as a convenient device for listening to podcasts.
Conclusion
With the growth in the podcast industry, now is a great time to get involved and start reaching more viewers! There’s still a lot that can happen with the podcasting industry as it is in the initial phase of its revolution.
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