You're more than a podcaster: you're a social network

If you identify yourself as one of the more than 2M active podcasters, you already know what a podcast is by definition. But does that definition really paint a full picture of what you've created?

Many people consider podcasting an on-demand version of a radio show. Let's this call this podcasting 1.0 for simplicity. That would mean it's a one-way broadcast of information, limited to producing, publishing and then listening by the consumers. The end.

The listener community of more than 110M Americans turns to shows for everything from education to entertainment. How-to Podcasts exist for people exploring new hobbies or perfecting their craft. And studies show many podcast listeners are multitasking — the list includes exercising, doing chores or commuting on a train or in a car. Being a part of a person's to-do list doesn't have to be the end of the relationship.

Your podcast is a stepping stone to a much larger community. It's really a social network with enormous untapped potential value.

Feeling disconnected from listeners limits a podcasters potential

The reason the majority of podcasters feel like a radio host more than a facilitator of change is because their listeners are invisible. The biggest barrier in podcasting is the limited insights about the individual people who choose to spend their time glued to a particular podcast show.

To add another layer of anonymity to the format, many podcast hosts feel like they are locked in a pitch black room because listeners have never had a way to interact with one another, let alone directly respond to the host.

Every single episode a podcaster publishes generates a web of thoughts, questions, and feedback from individual listeners, but they currently have no way to share them.

We can also pause here to consider the astounding growth of podcasting. Variety.com reported in 2018 that Apple Podcasts covered more than 100 languages across all its content. Combine that with the average listener consuming 11 hours of podcasting a week and you have a lot of ways to connect with a lot of different people.

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Shaping podcasts into a place for sharing ideas

If you're intrigued by this idea of your social network growing beyond the walls of your recording room, you can quickly assess the opportunity just by considering these two things.

1. You've already done the hard part. You've found an amazing group of like-minded people who love the things you have to say, love your take on the world, and as a result are very likely to love the things one another have to say. This is a huge reason to celebrate, but why stop here?
2. Open up the dialog, make some introductions. All you have to do is give them a way to meet, and they'll take care of the rest. Why? Because they share an interest in you and your unique perspective. A community ready to talk?! Pure gold!

Changing the way you interact with your listeners

Just imagine an app that enables face to face conversations between people discussing the stuff they love — your content.

At Convo, we believe a new kind of social community is needed just for podcasters and their listeners. We've focused on making it a simple one-click process for podcast hosts to deepen relationships and get to know their listeners.

You can lead the way into the next era of podcasting by setting up a call to get started. Or you can check this article out if you'd like to learn more about creating real connections with your listeners.