Omar Zenhom says the old way of growing podcasts through good content alone is dead. People find shows on Instagram now, not Apple or Spotify. Distribution matters more than talent, and podcasters ignoring this will stay small.
The era of growing your podcast through just great content is officially dead, and if you're not adapting, your show is becoming invisible no matter how good your episodes are. I've been podcasting since 2014 with over 300 million downloads and 2,700 episodes, and this is the biggest shift in the way people discover podcasts that I've ever seen. People aren't searching Apple or Spotify or even YouTube anymore. They're finding podcasts through Instagram. It's exactly how Mel Robbins, Huberman Lab, and The Diary of a CEO have exploded in less than a year. Let me just say this flat out plainly. The podcasters who refuse to do this and adapt and start growing on Instagram, they will either stay small forever or just disappear. I know these podcasters personally. They are resisting this change and they just don't want to do what it takes to grow their show. And here's the sad truth that no one wants to admit: distribution beats talent. You can be brilliant, you can be insightful, you can be right, you can be entertaining, but if your ideas don't travel, they don't matter.
