Where Do Listeners Get Podcast Recommendations

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everyone, we're back and we're talking about listeners this week. I know a lot of you podcasters like this is what you all want, more listeners, right? How many times do we hear that.

Everybody wants more listeners? I meet with a ton of podcasters every day and every week. And regardless of what outcome, ultimately they want to get out of the show, their long term goals to get out of it. It all is always helped or improved by having more listeners, right?

So welcome back to feed your brand on Tracy Hazard along with Tom Hazard. And we are talking about listeners like we were just saying, right? And this is because nobody starts a podcast to just talk into the mic, right? You're expecting someone on the other side?

Well, yes. Although I do think some podcasters like.

To hear themselves Speaker 2 like to.

Hear themselves speak and really don't have what's in it for the listener. Top of mind. It happens. But guess what? There's a balance. And really we always say, and you've heard us say this before, if you've been listening future event for a long time, you need to serve the listeners first, right?

And here's the thing, a lot of you don't understand the listeners. That's what we're going to talk about today. So where do listeners go to get podcast recommendations? Is our topic for today that we're going to talk about. And a lot of you who are podcast hosts are not podcast listeners. So you don't know where you go to get podcast recommendations. You've never gotten one. You don't, you don't ever do that, Right?

Absolutely right.

So I thought we'd kind of, for fun do like top seven, but in reverse. You know how like the least important.

To the most important.

David Letterman used to count down, right? Like this is the countdown, but I'm only going to do seven, not 10. So.

So the 10 from the home office in, you know, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or however he used to do it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But it's the top seven. All right, so hit us with the top seven, Tracy.

Well, I'm not going to give them to you all in Order. But I'm going to go with the most obvious one, which all of you are thinking. And when you start a podcast, this is the first thing you think about. The listening app. Apple is going to recommend you, Spotify is going to recommend you. And honestly, if I could give it 70 on my list, I would put it 70. Like I put it number seven because we're only going to seven. So it's the bottom of my list because it is the least effective thing. Now, it's least effective for two reasons, right, Tom? One, because you guys screw it up. You podcast hosts, you producers out there, you guys are doing it wrong. And I don't know how many times Tom and I have gone over how to do it right. He does webinars on it week after week after week. He does audits of people's podcasts, appraisals of them to tell them what they're doing wrong. You are more than welcome to find out about that. Like, reach out to us. We will give you the answers because we just want you to do it better job. But the second reason is, is because the algorithm sucks. Like, it is just bad. It's like Internet 1.0.

It favors quantity over quality above all else.

And so a real podcast listener knows that though that's the difference.

The listening app is not going to recommend you. They will list shows that are algorithmically climbing the charts. And so a top ranked show according to their systems, yes, will be shown and you can browse through the different categories and see those top shows, but it's very, very hard to get there. And it's not really the most important thing to do because not a heck of a lot of people go through listening apps just browsing. What are the top charts? Quite honestly, I think podcasters, podcast hosts, browse the charts more to see where they are in it or if they're in it, or if they're in the new and noteworthy for a new show than it is listeners do.

But that's because a lot of services and apps are selling you that. So that's what they sell you on. Like they're sending it to you and making you think it's important when it's really not. But a real podcast listener has been burned by those charts. They've clicked on the top three and some of them are junk and they know it. And so either they think these are like fake reviews on Amazon and I'm never going to believe what the charts say, or they're like, it's too basic, it doesn't get Me, it's based on something that's not important to me. And so they will never use the charts. I can say I've been a podcast listener for at least 15, 15 years, easily at least 15 years. And since the early, early days, I have probably not in the last decade once used a chart to choose a show, right?

And the thing is we all can see shows that are being promoted or featured in Apple or on Spotify, and guess what, folks, that can be bought. And it really, the only way shows are, they're either something Apple wants to promote because it's in Apple's or something that a marketing agency, a very, very high end national agency is paying to promote a podcast of a nationally known celebrity, you know, and they're making a big splash and all of us independent podcasters cannot afford to pay that kind of fee to get featured there. So don't ever think you're going to be featured there. It's just not going to happen. And honestly, at the end of the day, I really don't think it's that important.

Right, but remember, there's, there's, you know, we were talking about that is that of the 135 million monthly listeners, 85% of them are looking for a new show. So they are out there looking. They're just not looking in the app because they know it's a waste of.

Their time or because they're looking. When they search, if you've optimized your profile, they're going to find you.

Well, that's the big problem. It's like if you don't even have it done correctly and I type your name in and you don't show up, I'm giving up. I think you don't care or I'm.

Just unaware that you have a show.

Right, exactly. So the listening apps are number seven, the least effective number six, social media posts. I don't mean this is you posting and your guests posting this is it. Like it's just a small amount, a fraction of their audience is seeing that post. And so it's very low traction and conversion. And while they may go, oh, that person has a show, if they were happened to be looking for a new show in that genre and happened to see your post, they will make the effort to go out of the app, of the social media app and go into the listening app to go find your show, they will never click through and leave from that. They just don't do it because very typically it's not leading them to where they want because like, I Don't have Apple. I don't have Apple podcasts on my phone, so I can't click there. If that's the link you give me, if the link you're giving me is your website, you're probably doing better. But now it's a two step process for me. So I know that and I'm just going to immediately go into my player app and I'm going to go search if I find what I'm looking for. That's a small percent of a small percent. That's why it doesn't convert well and it requires leaving the social media app of which they're very happy within. So they're very happy to get your tip in there. They're very happy to hear about you. It's great brand reinforcement, but it is highly unlikely to get you a new listener.

I think there's varying degrees of success that can have. But I agree, Tracy, we do see podcasters dealing with a lot of disappointment when they have an influencer that has a million followers and they share their show and the lift and listenership they get is barely a blip on the chart of all your analytics. And that can happen. And because social media followers and viewers are not necessarily podcast listeners, but some are undoubtedly, there's a reason we all, and including we do it, Tracy. I mean, we always do share our episodes on social media. We get more traction and reaction, I think on LinkedIn than anywhere else. But there's, you know, lots of places we share it because we want to.

Raise awareness, but it is not to get new listeners. It is to reinforce it with our current listeners, our current followers. That's where we do better. We get more people to actually listen to the episodes because we post it, but they're from our following already. So that's what we're really doing with our social media rather than getting new listeners out there who never heard of our show before. It's just it converts so low it will be a blip on your stats, as Tom put it. So that's why it's not on my list. It's not high on my list. I do want you to post your show on social media. There's tons of brand reasons to do that. There's tons of conversion reasons for the topic to do it. There are tons of reasons to do it with your current followers. But it is not a listening recommendation model for what we're building here today. So the number five is niche organizations, communities, which sometimes could be on social. So you might have a community group or a Facebook page or group that is doing that. So you might have that. So that could also overlap slightly with social. But it's a very specific posting type that you're doing within that group to get the notifications. You might get in somebody's newsletter, you might get them to share out your episodes or your show. We know from past experience that the AARP magazine, the American association of Retired Persons magazine, recommended a show and they got 250,000 listeners from it, listens from downloads of their show just from that article in a magazine. Now that was a regular magazine publication, but it's a organization around a specific type of person, a specific model of audience that that recommendation had a lot of weight.

That was an impressive result from something like that. And the thing is, it's interesting because it's a very old school medium of a magazine, right. That I think older people would tend to read more than younger people. Right. And that was the market for the.

Podcast and it worked out great. So those. Do not underestimate those niche publications, trade publications, niche organizations, newsletters, the Facebook pages, and all of those things where communities are gathering. And when one person recommends, the bunch of the other members of the group who listen already will all chime in and say, oh yeah, that's a great podcast. That kind of social proof will really help your show grow. So that one is number five on my list. The reason it's only number five is because it's harder to find the groups that are going to let that are going to have that kind of result for you that are really going to do the good recommendation model. And so you just got to find the right ones.

All right, okay.

Number four, articles and lists. It ties kind of to that one that we're doing. But getting articles written about you, whether they're online articles or in print publications, but getting articles written about your show or making the top 10 lists, we see this a lot. People will look for the top podcasts in a particular market. So those lists matter. And those lists are very often out of date. So one of the tricks to going in is to go into one of those. When you find one online and you Google the top 10 lists in the health and fitness podcast and you find that seven of them are outdated, go and pitch a new list to 10 and include yourself on the list, of course.

Or, you know, reach out and just let them know, hey, this is a great article, a great list, and that's wonderful. Were you aware of these shows are no longer active in publishing new episodes? But my show that's very much in line with, with this is publishing new episodes. Would you be willing to replace one of your shows with mine on your list? Or as Tracy suggested, these kinds of authors of blog posts and also true of real magazine articles. One thing that is pretty universal about them, and of course any of them hearing me say this is going to be unhappy with me right now, but they're pretty darn lazy. And the other reality is they're super busy. And the reason they haven't updated that post is they're working on something new. They don't have time to go back and even check if that one is old. So if you do the work for them and you serve it to them gift wrapped, here's an updated list, an updated article here I've gotten all the, not only the item, the shows you should list, but a little blurb on each. And yes, yours is in there too. Here. I've done this, created this update for you. Would you be willing to update your post? It'll be a lot more relevant and get and benefit you as well as these shows. And they probably are just going to do it because all they got to do is copy and paste it.

Absolutely. So that's why that makes my list, because it's actually a really easy one to accomplish because all you got to do is Google the top 10 lists and whatever categories you want and go find out what's out there. And then also remember you had those trade organizations, those niche organizations, could you pitch a list to them?

All right, good suggestion, Tracy. I like that one.

Yeah, I love that one. That one's, that one does have a really good listener traction list and it's a place where people will pay attention. That's where listeners will go and value the recommendation that's made. Now the third is other podcasts and guests. So if you have other podcast hosts and you're guesting on their show, so you're doing that the swaps, or you're guesting on other people's shows, that is an easy way to get new listeners. And it is because remember I told you that a lot of podcast listeners are out there looking for a new show. They're already listening to some shows out there. So if they're listening to a show and they think you have added value and that host brought you in and had you featured on their show, they're treating it like an influencer recommendation and so they're going to go, well, I'm already a podcast listener. How easy is it for me to go and just click on that person's show. It's so easy. They're already in the app.

You remember the old cliche, if you want to have success fishing fish where the fish are, this is really that obviously raising awareness of your podcast on other podcasts, because guess who's listening to those podcast? Listeners. I mean, it's really pretty simple when you think about it. Now, I'm always for casting a wider net to find people who are not just in the podcast ecosystem that are out there and maybe unaware and not thinking about a podcast. Sure, I'm all about that. And there are programs and ways to do that. But definitely use podcasting to your advantage. And this works very well, right?

Absolutely. This is one of the great ways to do that. Now, I want to lump in here mobile apps as an option. And the reason I say that is because mobile apps are also have the same effect. If I'm already listening or I'm already on my phone using an app, it is a lot easier to go from that to choosing your. Your show. Right. It's not a very difficult move because they're already on that. So if you have any opportunities to do mobile app advertising or any kinds of those things. So, like, that is a paid model. All the other things I've been talking about today are unpaid. But if you want to do something that is the only one that we see equaling podcast guesting in terms of its conversion rate. So I would tie those two things. But this is an unpaid list, not a paid list, so I want to do that. So if you want to hear some more that Tom's an expert in some of those mobile ad advertisements and you've run webinar very frequently about it, we could put a link in the blog post for that.

I do. We could put a link to that. We could put a link to a landing page about this program called Promo Cast that if you want to put just a little money into promoting your show, can get you an awful lot of exposure. It does not cost a fortune. But let's.

But the goal is listener growth, right? Like, it's nothing but that. Yeah.

Well, let's continue with the free on the unpaid list.

Yeah, exactly. Number two is friends and family word of mouth. Like, I mean, how often do you.

Use your own network? Right?

Use your own network. Don't forget to invite them to like your show and share it and do things. And then the other one, I say this kind of word of mouth is a broad thing. How many times do we go to a podcast host speech somewhere and they forget to tell people they have a show.

Oh, my gosh. Anybody who is ever at an event and speaks from a stage or anything, I mean, it doesn't. It could be even in your local community. It doesn't even have to be, like a business event. It could be a personal event. Tracy. We've even taken on an ad for our own podcast in, like, the school sports. Like, what do they call that football catalog every year?

The media guide.

Yeah, Media guide. Yeah, for the football team at the local high school. I mean, if you live in a bigger town or city like we do, I mean, our high school in our area literally has over 2,000 students. And that's an awful lot of parents and families, too, right? These things are not expensive.

It's a donation.

It's a donation. You can deduct it. And it's less than buying dinner out. I mean, it's not that expensive. And you can get exposure for your show, but there's also completely free opportunities, like Tracy said, use your network. You must have some amount of personal and. Or business network reach that you can reach. And you know, Tracy, I love these sorts of things. You and I, for a decade now, have really been very involved in all kinds of business networking. And there was this person who you and I both know who was talking about the power of the network. And when we're at an event with just a small number of people, right? And maybe a hundred people, right? Well, you go to that event, you meet a hundred people, okay? But you raise awareness of your show with those hundred people, you have the opportunity not just to be exposed to those hundred people, but the 200 people they have in their phone contacts that are right on them, right? So when they hear about your show, they've got a lot of people they know, and they think, oh, they might like that show. They might like that show, and you can actually get connected with a lot more people, not just the people strictly in that room.

So that's why I want to raise the idea in your head that word of mouth is your mouth, not just other people gossiping about your show and talking about your show, right? You want other people to rave about it and then subscribe. So that's an ultimate goal. But you really do need to remember that it comes with first being proud of your show and telling people about it. And that comes to the next part of that sort of ABC of this number two, which is that you should tell your listeners, ask your listeners to share the show with someone they think needs it. Don't Say go ahead and post about us on social media. Just go share the show with someone in need, someone who can use the advice that I just gave today, like ask for one. They'll do more. They'll do more. If they benefit from it, they will. So do not forget about that power of the word of mouth because if I recommend a show, that person will subscribe, they will check it out, they will take the time to do it. So the number one, Tom, I bet you can guess what the number one best converting way to get new listeners to your show. The place that listeners go most to get podcast recommendations. Where do they go?

Where they go? Wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to make, I want, I don't want to screw this up in front of everybody. So where do listeners go, number one, to get recommendations for what podcast to listen to?

Yeah, where do they go?

Google.

Absolutely. They go to Google.

Thank goodness. I'm glad I didn't mess that one up. I mean, this is what I do for a living. Okay. No, it's true. Google is really universally the number one place people search for pretty much anything, not just podcasts. And don't get me wrong, a lot of people search in a podcast listening app. Other people will search and ask Alexa. Other people might ask Siri. Okay, great. That's true. Google's the number one search engine by far. And I'm talking, you know, Everybody says, well, YouTube is the number two search engine. Yes, it is. But it's a small single digit percentage of total searches compared to Google and everything else is even less than that.

So Google is the place where we go because we are going to get better recommendations that are more general to the, in the area we're looking for. So if I'm looking for a podcast that can talk to me about E commerce or recovering from cancer, whatever it might be, and I'm looking for that. If I type that topic that I'm looking for, all I do is just add podcast to the end of it. Stuff shows up and what shows up? 9 times out of 10, you're not participating in. And that's what I want you to understand. Tom and I were talking about this a couple episodes ago or a couple of coaching calls ago. We were talking about the analytics and the stats and the other things. And my stats are by far 60% of my traffic comes from Google. 60% of listens to my show come from Google. And that's usually just one episode before then they hit subscribe. I have a really steady subscriber increase that is coming from those people who are checking out the show from Google to begin with. But I have a 60% of my traffic is coming from Google to begin with. So they're coming through a blog to an episode.

I think what you mean to say is they're coming from Google Chrome browser, not a listening app. Is that correct? Not a Google search per se.

Right. But it is the same effect because they're coming from something that is searchable Google, a URL that I have somewhere. Right. They're coming to that from somewhere else. And it's likely they're coming from search because I don't post out those. I don't post out the long form, long tail, Google Chrome that you would use to be listening to my show. I don't post it that way. Right. You have to come to the blog post for the episode. That's how you would get there. You'd be reading it, you'd be listening to it, but you'd come from some kind of search somewhere. Occasionally a social media post, but highly unlikely because I usually just sent you to my podcast page from there. So it's just a matter of semantics about how you get to it and get through to it. So it is trackable for me. But I have a lot more listens than most people do coming because I've built up a lot of Google value over time.

Well, and that really is what we believe is the greatest opportunity and the greatest value for every podcaster in being heard and found is through Google searches as a result of the content you're recording in your podcast. Right. I mean, this is the way you can be found more than other shows. Other. Yeah. Gosh, how many shows every day? Yesterday I was checking out another show that said it was a podcast. It came for a podcast power appraisal to our website and did that with me. And I'm trying to find their show. It's not even on podcast listening apps. It's only a YouTube show right now, and there's nothing wrong with that. But again, talking about maximizing your exposure, leaving it as only a YouTube show and not putting out it as a podcast, that's one level of opportunity lost. Not having a website that's the home for it is a bigger one.

Well, you really can't call yourself a podcast if you're not syndicated.

Well, YouTube is blurring the lines there now because you can have a YouTube podcast. And for those of you listening, I have like air quotes going up here, YouTube podcasts, playlist of your episode videos. And in the world of YouTube, you're calling it a podcast. And it's a podcast. And it doesn't have to be on Apple or Spotify or any. Or iheart, any of the other listening apps. Now. It absolutely should. There's no reason not to. And you can do a. Publish it once and have it push everywhere. That's the whole point of podcasting. Right. But YouTube is in how the terms they're using and how they're presenting certain playlists of videos. They're definitely blurring the lines of. And I think, Tracy, I wonder if one day, maybe after were done in this industry or this business, retired, whatever, I don't know, will new people listening to podcasts be like. What do you mean? Podcasts used to be audio only. I mean, maybe that won't really be the case at some point, but right now they're still distributed more through audio than video, quite honestly, really are.

Right. I don't care through that about that at all. What I'm saying is, is that you're not a podcast if you're not on all the listening apps.

I tend to agree with you from.

All practical reality, that's what the listener sees. I have my preferred listening app, and if you're not listed there, you're not a podcast. That's how they see it. Right. That's why you cannot do one platform.

No, Right.

You can't just do Spotify. You do that. There's millions of listeners on other platforms. That's their preferred listening app. You're missing them. And YouTube is a preferred area. YouTube music, really, but it's a preferred area for some people. So that's why you can't just be in one place. But the real point of Google is that if you don't have a landing page for your podcast show or website, hopefully that you own, you're not really appearing in Google search. There's nothing that's going to help you do that. Not one of the hosting companies will give you something that actually has any kind of Google ranking. At the end of the day, they get the ranking, you don't. So there is no place for you to get any kind of Google search working for you unless you own your own podcast page somewhere. That's it. You've got to make sure that that's Google ready because it's a great way to do it. The second part of it is that so many of you are forgetting about your image search because a lot of times when I'm confused about what the podcast is, I just go into the image because then I'll be like, oh, that's the one I was talking about. I don't know how to spell it. You know, Hazard has two Z's. Like, I know how many times do they get my name wrong? But they will remember what I look like because they heard my speech. So they go. And they go podcasts on, on podcasts and they go into the image library. They're like, that's the one. Feed your brand Tracy Hazard with two Z's. That's why it wasn't working in my app. Hopefully you fixed that with at least some amount of it. But you know some amount of search criteria where you've spelled your name wrong, right, just to make sure. But it's really where Google search and image search go hand in hand together. Do not forget about that. And you have great cover art, so use it. Make sure it's. Make sure it has your name in it, your show name in it. Make sure it's got an alt tag in it.

Another huge reason to create. And this is just a friendly tip and advice. This isn't one of Tracy's top seven things about today's topic, but really, if you have a show and you're not creating a unique image, graphic artwork, call it whatever you want, a unique square image, it doesn't have to be 100% unique every time. You can have a template with some identity of your show and stuff in it, and you're just going to drop in a reference image image related to what you're talking about behind some other stuff. I mean, it really can be very easy to do in Canva. Doesn't have to cost you any money. But creating a unique image for every episode has incredible value for you in SEO because you can have keywords associated with that image in the company. Google image search. And if they're on your website, guess what? People click on it. They go to the source page where that image is from. They're on your podcast, webpage, or wherever it is you want them to be. So much missed opportunity there. For shows that don't create a unique image, not only are they getting less click engagement when people are scrolling through all their episodes, but they also are missing more opportunity in that huge net that you're trying to cast to be found by new and more listeners. It's just opportunity loss and it doesn't take very much time. And if you're having your episode produced, they should be creating one for you. Whoever's producing your stuff. Audio editing is only one small piece of what should be happening Right.

So to go back one one to seven and recap here.

Recap.

Google search and image two Word of mouth. Don't forget about yours. Your mouth say, tell people about your show. Number three, other podcasters or other mobile apps, like anything that is already likely to have a lot of listeners and listeners will just quickly search over and find the show. Right. Number four, articles and listicles. Any kind of articles and lists anywhere, digital and in print. Number five, niche organizations, trade groups, any place where communities are gathering focused around either your topic or your ideal listener. Number six, social posts of your guest, yours, social posts of any kind. Just make those social posts wherever you can. And number seven, listening apps, making sure that you're optimized for them. At minimum, making sure that you're on all of them. Right. Those are the the main ways to capture those seven. And if you do all seven of those, you are optimizing your opportunity to be where listeners are getting podcast recommendations.

I couldn't say it better myself, Tracy. Really don't have anything to add to that. I think this is really valuable information for all you podcasters out there. You need to be aware of these things. And if you don't have the budget to pay someone to promote your podcast who's doing it for you, then here's a roadmap for what you can do.

Absolutely. So if you are one of our listeners and we have a lot of you who are podcast producers that have podcast service companies, there's a graphic for this and the graphic will be in the blog post for this episode@podcastersunited.org please share it out with other people. It helps share the Podcasters United community, so that helps as well. And as always, we will be back next week, right, Tom? We will be back next week with another episode trying to help you figure out this podcast marketing world and how you can get more listeners, how you can get more from your show.

Absolutely.

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