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This Year, Podcasting Should be a Part of Your Brand and Content Strategy

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Two women in front of podcast microphones having a conversation
Photo by George Milton

Each week, more Americans listen to podcasts than have Netflix accounts.

According to Edison Research, 44% of the population in the United States has listened to a podcast at least once. Even more impressive is that 21% of the population listens to podcasts monthly.

There are 383.7 million podcast listeners globally. It is predicted that there will be around 424 million podcast listeners worldwide by the end of 2022. As of June 2022, there were over 2.4 million podcasts with over 66 million episodes between them.

Some stats via BuzzSprout:

  • In 2022, 62% of the population 12+ has listened to a podcast, and roughly 79% are familiar with the medium.
  • 73% of the U.S. population 12+ have listened to online audio in the last month.
  • Over one-third (104 million) of Americans listen to podcasts regularly.
  • 38% of those ages 12+ in the U.S. are monthly podcast listeners.
  • 43% of listeners ages 35–54 are monthly podcast listeners (the most popular age group for podcast consumption).
  • 26% (80 million) of Americans are weekly podcast listeners.
  • 88% of Americans own a smartphone.
  • Smart speaker ownership grew by over 22% during the first year of the pandemic as more people worked from home.
  • In 2022, 35% of Americans 18+ will own a smart speaker.
  • During Covid, podcasting experienced unprecedented growth, and podcast audiences diversified.

Name practically any topic, and there’s a podcast for it.

So, if you’re trying to build or bolster a brand, what are you waiting for?

The barriers to starting an online business have never been lower. Starting a podcast is more accessible than many people think. Anyone can create and launch their own podcast with the tools within reach. Plenty of resources are available to help you get started, and it can be done relatively quickly and inexpensively. You can have your podcast up and running in no time.

I won’t get into the minutia of how exactly to start a podcast — there are many resources better than me to inform you about that.

Some of the misconceptions around podcasting:

You need expensive equipment.
Your phone is good enough to record with. There are also plenty of free tools to help you get started.

You need a large following.
This is 100 percent untrue. You’re not going to be Joe Rogan, not this month or ever. But that’s not the initial goal. 

Podcasts need to be long — at least an hour!
More misinformation. At SUMO Heavy, we put out the eCommerce Minute podcast; each episode was less than 30 minutes (mostly around 15 minutes). We had over 700 episodes, and listeners are still checking out old episodes.

This article explains how your podcast can become a pillar in your content strategy. Let me explain:

Let’s say you have a podcast about interviewing artists and their daily routines. We’ll assume you’ve already set up your social media channels.

You’ll post a link to your followers and potential followers when you publish.

But it shouldn’t end there.

1. Make a transcript and publish it to your blog.
Make sure you post your latest episode transcripts along with embedded audio. You never know who might accidentally discover your podcast via search.

2. Get those emails!
Set up a mailing list capture and build your list. Direct listeners there to capture emails for your list and to serve as a directory for episodes and show notes. This also helps your SEO. Your casual listeners could become your top fans if you keep them in the loop!

3. Make YouTube Videos.
Record your guests on Zoom or Skype, then publish to your YouTube channel. YouTube is an excellent content search, and recommendation engine, so accidental discovery is possible.

If you can’t get a video recording, design an engaging title card and post just the audio file.

4. Don’t sleep on TikTok and Instagram
Instagram has gone video-heavy. TikTok is also becoming a search engine. Post clips of your video or audio with engaging graphics — research your keywords.

5. Quote Graphics
Take quotes from your guest and republish them on your social channels. Use a free design tool like Canva to create attention-grabbing graphics.

These are just five easy pieces of additional content that can be part of your brand strategy. If you have other ‘guerilla marketing’ tactics to share, leave them in the comments!

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