How To Increase Podcast Listenership

Do you want more people to listen to your podcast? Learn from this case study.

I recently posted three identical but differently named mp3 files to find out which version is accessed by more podcast listeners:

1. Direct link (12.5% of total accesses)
2. Streaming audio flash button (3%)
3. Flash playlist which appears on many webpages (84.5%)

The direct link is a clickable link that leads directly to an MP3 file. Sometimes, the file has to completely download before your listener starts hearing your podcast. It can also be accessed if someone subscribes to your podcast feed and downloads your sound file into their MP3 player.

Here's an example of a direct link:
MP3 File direct link

The streaming audio flash button appears as a "play" button on the actual web page that contains your podcast episode. When people click on it, they will be able to hear your podcast while it is being downloaded. They don't have to wait for the entire sound file to be completely downloaded before they hear anything.

Here's an example of a flash button (Episode 7):

A playlist is similar to the flash button, except that it can display more than one sound file. If you look near the bottom of this page, you'll see (if you have Flash installed) a radio-like image that contains a list of the podcast episodes of the Viloria.com Pinoy Podcast.

In this unscientific podcast listenership experiment, you'll find the playlist on many web pages, even on pages that are not related to any podcast episode.

Bottomline: If you want more people to listen to your podcast, create a blog or web site that has diverse written topics (not a podcast-only blog), and then display a playlist of your podcast episodes on every page of that blog.

This way, people who land on your web site from the search engines will read your text, scroll down, and will become curious with your podcast playlist. Voila! More listeners for your podcast.

(The playlist found near the bottom of this page was created using Webmaster Media Maker.)

[ First posted on 10/14/2005 by Manuel Viloria ]