The Growing Trend in Social Audio

To understand the power of social audio today, you need to look no further than the explosion of popularity of podcasts in recent years. Consider the following example of how a single podcast revolutionized the way that the world began to think of audio:

On October 3, 2014, the world was introduced to a podcast show called "Serial". Hosted by Sarah Koenig, an investigation of the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, this story was originally hosted by This American Life. As of July 2020, the New York Times purchased the series. This show lit up much of society with an interest in exploring what podcasts were and how they might be able to best enjoy them. This is one of the first types of social audio that has really taken the world by storm, and it continues to do so to this day. 

Why Podcasts are Attractive to Marketers

Larger and larger portions of marketing dollars are going into ads for podcast episodes. There is an increasing audience for all of these shows, and this has caused the number and variety of advertisers to grow as well. In fact, larger companies are starting to market on podcasts more than they used to in the past. There are also more mainstream companies getting involved in the production and distribution of podcasts as well. 

Forbes has explained one of the reasons why podcasts have exploded during the pandemic: 

With 60% of podcast listening done at home, adoption was especially notable during the pandemic. According to the latest Infinite Dial survey from Edison One and Triton Digital, in 2020, 37% of Americans (age 12+) listen to at least one podcast each month, up from 32% in 2019.

Podcast listening was one of the activities that people could do by themselves in their own homes to help fill the entertainment gaps that they were missing out on during the lockdown days. They may not have been able to get out to the movie theaters and the like, but they could still listen to their favorite podcast stories. 

It turns out that people are spending more of their total listening time on podcasts as well, thus, advertisers have seen that there is a large and growing captive audience that may benefit from hearing about their product offerings. If they can get their messages in front of the right people, they can make an increased number of sales moving forward.

Twitter Dabbles in Social Audio

The social media giant, Twitter, has had to experiment with a variety of different offerings to grow and maintain its audience. One of the best things that Twitter has landed on for its users is a service known as "Twitter Spaces."

A few important things to know about Twitter Spaces include: 

• Anyone Can Host Twitter Spaces: There is no minimum number of followers that one must have in order to host Twitter Spaces. It is generally more entertaining and informative when one has a larger follower count, but it is not absolutely necessary to have a specific number of followers to make it happen.

• Spaces Can Have up to 11 Speakers: There are figures that relate to how Twitter Spaces works. For example, it is possible for a single event to have up to 11 speakers, 1 host, and 2 co-hosts. 

• Twitter Expects Explosive Growth from This: Twitter has not necessarily had the best of years lately, but one thing that has been going for them is the fact that Spaces is showing a lot of signs of growth as of late. There is a social and audio element to Twitter Spaces that you just don't get with other social media outlets at this time. Other platforms may attempt to take this idea away from Twitter, but right now, they are the ones who have mastered the art of social audio.

Twitter has also done a good job of making sure that it has fully explained the Twitter Spaces feature from the moment it first appeared on the platform. The people at Twitter knew that there would be a lot of confusion about this offering, but they also knew that they could take steps to help their users understand what they were getting into with this one. 

Clubhouse Takes the Idea to the Next Level

A new social media app is generating a considerable amount of buzz, even though it is still quite challenging to get on to this particular platform. It is known as Clubhouse, and it is an invitation-only platform where many people are coming together to share their stories and ideas with one another. On the surface, this sounds like a truly utopian place, but it is not necessarily open to all right now. 

One of the reasons why Clubhouse is so exclusive is the fact that there are many celebrities that participate on the app. They don't necessarily want everyday people to clog it up too much, and there is no shortage of people who are waiting in line to participate when they get the chance. 

Part of the appeal of this app is its exclusivity. The fact that it may be possible to have a very intimate conversation with one's favorite celebrity is a big deal, and there are many people who are happy to jump at this opportunity if it is presented to them. That said, only a select few have had the chance to explore it at all at this point. 

One feature that many users do appreciate about this network is the fact that there are audio-only Ted Talks coming to it soon. Thus, there will literally be exclusive audio content that you can't find anywhere else on the Clubhouse app, and that audio is coming from some of the most interesting speakers in the world. That is a challenging combination to beat when you look at everything going on in the world of audio. Clubhouse has clearly struck gold with this one, and there is no reason to think that they won't continue to do exactly that going forward. After all, they already obtained a valuation of $100 million when they had only 1,500 users back in May 2021, so the sky's the limit! 

Everyone is a Creator

Part of the appeal of social audio is the fact that virtually anyone can become a creator if they want to. They only need to have at least a small following and a willingness to put themselves out there for their fans. Audio is even more attractive for this purpose because it is seen as being easier to produce for the masses. 

Patreon Makes Audio Creativity More Universal

There used to be some gatekeepers in the world of audio. This is to say that there were limits to what someone could do because they didn't necessarily have the funds available to put into their audio passions. 

Now, platforms such as Patreon have made it easier. Once a creator builds up enough of an audience base, they can ask that base to support them on Patreon. It takes less of a base of people than you might suspect as it often comes down to simply getting a few hundred or a few thousand people to believe in you. Once that base has been established, then they can sign up for Patreon to pledge some of their money to support your cause. Supporters will expect some bonus content for their money, but many creative people are happy to offer it because it garners them the financial support that they require. 

Peer-to-peer support like this is certain to be the future of social audio and digital marketing in the eyes of many. For more information on this and our takes on what audio will look like moving forward, please contact us to get the details that you need.