Disruptive FM: Podcasting and the Rise of New Media Moguls

I've been giving more talks around the world lately and I keep noting a study my old team at Ogilvy & Mather conducted in late 2012. In that study performed by the Social@Ogilvy IBM team, we noted that a successful content marketing campaign on the social web includes the following three elements: SIGHT, SOUND and MOTION.

Sight in the form of photos, infographics or long form written content that can be channeled via a number of outlets like Instagram, Pinterest, SlideShare or Medium. Motion in the form of video which could be P2P video found using a Google Hangout or Skype group chat; a pre-produced form of video uploaded to YouTube, Facebook or Twitter or now a Periscope live stream.

The third form is probably the most important but often most ignored medium. Sound comes in the form of audio content that can include podcasts, interviews, lectures or music shows using Soundcloud, iTunes or Spreaker. This audio piece is the one area that will continue to grow in influence in a mobile society where audio, not simply video, is creating emerging media moguls.

But why will audio help usher in the discovery of new media moguls and not video? I mean, YouTube has video personalities that have major influence so why is podcasting the path to growing engagement and influence? A lot of my speculative theory is based on the data:

• The US podcasting audience is ballooning, and eMarketer projects that growth will continue at least through 2017. By then, there will be 37.6 million people who download podcasts monthly, more than double the 2008 figure of 17.4 million.
• The barrier to entry has been reduced. With technology like Spreaker where one only needs their iPhone app to create and distribute a podcast, it could soon become the "Instagram of audio."
• There’s a growing audience thanks to in-car technology that makes on-demand listening as easy as tuning into traditional radio. There’s a podcast app that comes standard on all iPhones, meaning more people are inclined to subscribe to shows and give them a listen when they see a little notification pop up that there’s a new episode. And then there’s the runaway success of Serial, podcasting’s first megahit, which garnered more than 5 million listeners—numbers that rival some cable TV shows. Serial was to podcasting as MTV was to cable television. A spark that has incited a tipping point.
• The average time a person views a video? 1 minute and 34 seconds. The average time a person listens to a podcast? 22 minutes.

This is a major reason why legacy media companies as well as startup channels ala Buzzfeed and Slate's podcast network Panoply are starting to take podcasts more seriously. The nature of listeners is very different from other forms of media. When is the last time a GIF created that deep of an engagement rate?

The behavior data is astounding. Podcast audiophiles listen to an average of six episodes per week. Once they find a podcast they like, they tend to be devoted. The delivery networks also are unique in that subscriptions deliver the content direct to applications on your smartphone. You don't have to remember to go back to a website in order to hear the freshest new content. It's delivered to you. This is ultimately a pre-cursor in very crude terms of how the Internet of Things will ultimately operate.

The medium feels intimate. Unlike online behavior, where we tend to tap through a site and then bounce away quickly, podcasts draw us in for the duration of the episode. Popular podcasts time in at 22 minutes, about the time to watch a television show. Yet listeners can be anywhere now due to mobility and headphones. Popular places to listen to emerging personalities occur while jogging, in your apartment doing laundry, in the car or on the subway. Listeners feel a deep, personal connection with the hosts. In an era where ad rates are plummeting and unique views are a vanity metric, media needs this level of engagement with content. Furthermore other media behaviors are now taking root in audio listening circles. The power of Netflix ushered in a whole new behavior deemed "binge viewing." Now instead of binge viewing, we have binge listening, which can take place during rush hour, in between classes or while I type away at work (currently listening to HBR Ideacast in case you were curious).

Podcasts allow those people who are true subject matter experts to finally be heard not by simply the masses, but by a more important demographic: segments of people interested in a particular craft/talent/topic/interest/skill/sport. I used to complain about the talent on Food Network. Now there are thousands of real chefs I can listen to and not watch who are the real deal. I can't stand Jim Craemer and the majority of business TV hosts on outlets like CNBC. So I started my own tech business podcast instead of simply complaining about how outdated Wall Street is in analyzing companies of the new century. Commercial radio, the oldest of old media and a dinosaur in terms of new music promotion means little now that I can discover new artists with hosts that are really tied to particular scenes and genres whether they be hip hop, indie, EDM or R&B.

Just as music artists began to go independent and become more popularized beyond the music industrial complex of the big record labels with the advent of MP3 distribution, budding media moguls and those with social media followings are increasingly going to leverage podcasts to speak with their base and grow emerging revenue streams as advertisers take note of the brand loyalty and intimacy afforded by podcast consumption.

Geoffrey Colon is a Growth Marketer at Microsoft. Follow him here on LinkedIn or Twitter for more of his left-of-center business thinking. Listen to his podcast DISRUPTIVE FM weekly every Thursday. Read his book "Disruptive Marketing, Disciplined Results" on AMACOM Books. See him in person at Brand Innovators Content Marketing events across the U.S. and U.K. in 2015.