3 Great Reasons, and 1 Lousy One, To Make a Podcast.
It seems like everyone is listening to podcasts these days, and the research is bearing that out. According to a 2022 Statistica survey, 62 percent of US consumers listened to audio podcasts. The forecast for 2025 is that there will be over 144 million monthly listeners in the U.S. alone.
With numbers like that, is it time for you to get in the podcasting game?
Before we start, what is a podcast?
“It’s the Joe Rogan Experience…” Yes, and, according to Oxford Languages (aka Google’s English dictionary) it’s “a digital audio file available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device.” While they are “typically available as a series, new instalments of which can be received by subscribers automatically”, that is not necessarily so.
There seem to be different explanations for what the P-O-D means, and the one I like best is Personal On Demand. That feels pretty aligned to my experience of podcasts, I can access them where and when I want.
So, podcasts are digital audio files, likely a series of them, available to your audience, on demand from anywhere, on any device.
With that out of the way, let’s move onto why you might want to make one.
Great Reason #1: Podcasts build connection.
Podcasts feature the human voice, a rich medium for building trust and human connection.
A podcast in your voice offers your audience a difference experience of your expertise, your insights, your stories than a post, article or ebook, that they read in their voice. They’ll get to know you better and this is super important in the digital age, where increasingly we find people we want to work with, buy from, connect with, online.
Looking to connect more deeply with your audience? It’s time to make a podcast.
Great reason #2: Podcasts scale.
A digital asset, make a podcast once, use it an infinite number of times over time and distance. While you will doubt me in the early going—the learning curve can feel steep—they are relatively easy to make so they’re pretty good ROE (return on effort).
Plus, podcasts are a great starting point for other content. You can spin off articles and posts fairly easily. If you’re looking to level up your online profile —for personal or professional reasons— you’ll want to be creating more content (and more channels). Not tons of it maybe, you don’t have to post daily, and I’m for quality over quantity, but you’ll be wanting to make more…and podcasts can help with that.
To show this in action, I made a podcast version of this post:
Great Reason #3: Podcasts make you look modern.
Ok, so here’s the ugly truth…ageism is a thing, especially when it comes to tech, so as we age we need to work harder to look explicitly relevant and ‘with it’.
Call it an ageism hack, making a podcast makes you look modern. You’ll learn and practice skills to help you thrive in the digital age, which means you won’t just look modern, you will be. Sweet!
One Lousy Reason: To Make Money
Despite the hype about different ways to make money with your podcast, the reality is it’s hard to make money with your podcast. There are 2 million podcasts worldwide and 99% of them don’t make money.
Creating a podcast is a creators journey, one that also makes solid business and professional sense. Get into podcasting to connect with the people who matter to you, to more efficiently share your expertise and stories, and to be modern. Maybe you’ll make money on it, but that’s not the point.
Ready to get podcasting? Check out our Podcasting Lab.
Have a question? Email Janneke.