Evo Terra: 00:00:00

The most popular podcasts on Spotify are now on public display.

Evo Terra: 00:00:05

Getting your show listed on that page could be a huge boon.

Evo Terra: 00:00:10

But are you willing to pay the steep price?

Evo Terra: 00:00:17

Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

Evo Terra: 00:00:22

Spotify has now made their podcast ranking charts available via a public webpage.

Evo Terra: 00:00:32

It's the same data that you've been able to access before by logging

Evo Terra: 00:00:36

into the app on your mobile device and I think on your desktop as well.

Evo Terra: 00:00:41

But it no longer requires you to be logged in to that device

Evo Terra: 00:00:45

or that system or that service.

Evo Terra: 00:00:48

It's now on public display.

Evo Terra: 00:00:50

You just go to the website, which of course will be linked

Evo Terra: 00:00:52

in the episode details here.

Evo Terra: 00:00:55

Now, it's a pretty clear and very bold push by Spotify, who has been very

Evo Terra: 00:01:00

clear and very bold in their push into podcasting since 2019, further solidifying

Evo Terra: 00:01:06

themselves as the authority in podcasting.

Evo Terra: 00:01:11

"This is THE public available ranking."

Evo Terra: 00:01:14

That's what they want all of us to buy into it.

Evo Terra: 00:01:16

And if not us, that's what they want the general public to buy into.

Evo Terra: 00:01:18

"We are the arbiters of what is top and most popular."

Evo Terra: 00:01:23

So should you and me and every other podcaster out there, the working

Evo Terra: 00:01:27

podcaster, should we play along with this?

Evo Terra: 00:01:31

Well, maybe.

Evo Terra: 00:01:32

Let's talk about the way this chart works.

Evo Terra: 00:01:34

Charting is always kind of a gray box.

Evo Terra: 00:01:37

We know a little bit about what all goes into the ranking factors

Evo Terra: 00:01:39

and algorithms but not everything.

Evo Terra: 00:01:42

According to Spotify, they've given us some good data.

Evo Terra: 00:01:45

Or good information, I should say.

Evo Terra: 00:01:46

They say that getting a show ranked, or also an episode,

Evo Terra: 00:01:50

they do top episodes as well.

Evo Terra: 00:01:51

Getting a show and/or episode ranked is basically a factor of two things.

Evo Terra: 00:01:56

One, how many followers that show has on Spotify, and number two, the number

Evo Terra: 00:02:05

of times somebody plays an episode or that episode of that particular show.

Evo Terra: 00:02:11

But now, so again, that's size of the audience and play activity.

Evo Terra: 00:02:16

But let me repeat, only on Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:02:20

Number of followers of that show on Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:02:23

Number of plays through the Spotify app.

Evo Terra: 00:02:27

Spotify only knows Spotify data.

Evo Terra: 00:02:29

They know a lot of Spotify data.

Evo Terra: 00:02:31

But it's only their people.

Evo Terra: 00:02:34

Only Spotify users influence the Spotify podcast ranking charts.

Evo Terra: 00:02:39

Now, that's some 350 million people who use Spotify on a regular basis.

Evo Terra: 00:02:46

Only about 25% of those are avid listeners to podcasts, or even at all

Evo Terra: 00:02:52

listeners to podcasts based on some info Spotify gave us a few months ago.

Evo Terra: 00:02:57

So 25%, that's around 80 million people.

Evo Terra: 00:03:00

That's a pretty large sample size.

Evo Terra: 00:03:02

That's a lot of people listening and because it's such a large sample

Evo Terra: 00:03:06

size, that's why when you look at Spotify's top podcast rankings

Evo Terra: 00:03:10

and compare them to Apple's top rankings, they're fairly close.

Evo Terra: 00:03:14

I didn't see any outliers.

Evo Terra: 00:03:16

I didn't spend a lot of time digging, but they looked like the same shows

Evo Terra: 00:03:19

were there just in different positions, you know, plus or minus five or six.

Evo Terra: 00:03:23

They were all at around the same thing.

Evo Terra: 00:03:26

Broadly speaking, same as Apple charts.

Evo Terra: 00:03:27

So they're probably as accurate as Apple's charts, which also, by the way, only track

Evo Terra: 00:03:33

activity done through Apple Podcasts.

Evo Terra: 00:03:37

Alright.

Evo Terra: 00:03:40

Clearly what the podcast charts want us to do is two things - push hard

Evo Terra: 00:03:45

to get there, and a lot of people are going to say, hey, push hard to

Evo Terra: 00:03:48

get there because you're going to get a whole lot more people downloading

Evo Terra: 00:03:50

your show if you're on these charts.

Evo Terra: 00:03:51

And I don't know that I can argue for or against that, but I just want to

Evo Terra: 00:03:56

say that the person that these charts serve, first and foremost, is Spotify

Evo Terra: 00:04:05

and Apple Podcasts or anybody else who comes along and makes a ranking.

Evo Terra: 00:04:09

The primary benefactor of these ranking charts are the organizations

Evo Terra: 00:04:15

doing the ranking themselves.

Evo Terra: 00:04:19

And that's very clear.

Evo Terra: 00:04:20

That's not me going, oh, what an amazing thing.

Evo Terra: 00:04:22

Look, the way you get better rankings is by convincing people to follow you and

Evo Terra: 00:04:28

listen to your show on that platform.

Evo Terra: 00:04:30

That's it.

Evo Terra: 00:04:31

It's the only way you can do it.

Evo Terra: 00:04:34

So clearly the more you push to get on top of that ranking, that means

Evo Terra: 00:04:38

you're causing more people to listen to you on that device and follow you

Evo Terra: 00:04:42

on that particular app and service.

Evo Terra: 00:04:44

That's what they want you to do.

Evo Terra: 00:04:47

It's them.

Evo Terra: 00:04:49

They are the benefactors, not necessarily you.

Evo Terra: 00:04:53

Maybe if you make it to the charts, but it's the benefactors

Evo Terra: 00:04:56

of millions of podcasters.

Evo Terra: 00:04:59

We have millions.

Evo Terra: 00:05:00

Well, more than a million podcasters, let's say, telling all

Evo Terra: 00:05:04

their friends, oh my god, switch!

Evo Terra: 00:05:06

Start listening on this app!

Evo Terra: 00:05:10

Big deal for that app.

Evo Terra: 00:05:11

Not so much a big deal for that podcaster.

Evo Terra: 00:05:16

I have two predictions that are going to come out of this new Spotify ranking.

Evo Terra: 00:05:19

Well, I guess three.

Evo Terra: 00:05:20

Number one is they're not going to be the last one.

Evo Terra: 00:05:23

Expect lots of different app services, apps, directories to come out with

Evo Terra: 00:05:28

their top rankings, because why not?

Evo Terra: 00:05:30

It benefits them, like I said.

Evo Terra: 00:05:32

Okay.

Evo Terra: 00:05:32

That's number one.

Evo Terra: 00:05:34

Number two is we'll see chart monitoring services.

Evo Terra: 00:05:38

We already have chart monitoring services.

Evo Terra: 00:05:40

They are now going to incorporate Spotify's data.

Evo Terra: 00:05:43

So you can subscribe via email and get a notification every day that

Evo Terra: 00:05:49

your podcast goes up and down the charts, or when it finally makes an

Evo Terra: 00:05:53

appearance on the charts, if it ever makes an appearance on the chart.

Evo Terra: 00:05:56

There will be services out there.

Evo Terra: 00:05:58

Scrape this page and report back to you, the podcaster, how you're doing.

Evo Terra: 00:06:04

That's an easy guess.

Evo Terra: 00:06:05

Number three prediction is maybe by the weekend, we'll start getting spam

Evo Terra: 00:06:10

emails from people saying, "I can get you to the top of the charts on Spotify!"

Evo Terra: 00:06:16

That's what happens when you have rankings.

Evo Terra: 00:06:18

There are people out there, unscrupulous people out there, who

Evo Terra: 00:06:21

will find ways to manipulate it.

Evo Terra: 00:06:23

And this one's relatively easy to manipulate.

Evo Terra: 00:06:26

Make an account, attach it to a SIM card in a country that has really

Evo Terra: 00:06:31

cheap phones and really cheap data rates to do various things.

Evo Terra: 00:06:36

We've seen it before with Apple Podcasts.

Evo Terra: 00:06:38

We'll see it again with Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:06:40

We're going to see people out there gaming the system, so expect some change on

Evo Terra: 00:06:44

those charts as gamers jump in the system.

Evo Terra: 00:06:48

Anyhow, what does all this mean for the average podcaster?

Evo Terra: 00:06:50

Or not just the average podcaster.

Evo Terra: 00:06:51

95% of podcasters.

Evo Terra: 00:06:53

I don't think it means all that much, in all honesty.

Evo Terra: 00:06:57

You got to remember, these lists are top level only, and they're

Evo Terra: 00:07:01

dominated by shows that have big followings already on Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:07:07

That's a lot of work to bust through that.

Evo Terra: 00:07:11

I'm talking several tens of thousands of dollars worth of a marketing plan.

Evo Terra: 00:07:16

If you've got a marketing plan for your podcast that includes several

Evo Terra: 00:07:19

tens of thousands of dollars to promote your podcast, then you should

Evo Terra: 00:07:22

absolutely get in touch with Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:07:25

They would love to help you break into the ranks because when you spend

Evo Terra: 00:07:30

all that money, you're going to tell people, listen to the show on Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:07:35

Doing branding for them, of course, they'll spend money.

Evo Terra: 00:07:37

Apple will do the exact same thing.

Evo Terra: 00:07:39

Remember, these charts benefit the chart makers more than anyone else.

Evo Terra: 00:07:47

The only thing you might consider is where Spotify shows up in your

Evo Terra: 00:07:54

listing on your website of "Follow the show on these platforms."

Evo Terra: 00:07:58

Or you maybe you still say subscribe to the show on these platforms.

Evo Terra: 00:08:00

Where does Spotify show up?

Evo Terra: 00:08:02

Now, I moved Spotify to the first place earlier this year?

Evo Terra: 00:08:07

Last year?

Evo Terra: 00:08:08

I don't remember.

Evo Terra: 00:08:09

Go to podcastpontifications.com and you'll see the list of all

Evo Terra: 00:08:12

the places you can subscribe.

Evo Terra: 00:08:13

I've got Spotify listed first because of the moves they're making in the space.

Evo Terra: 00:08:17

They're clearly trying to dominate.

Evo Terra: 00:08:18

I wanted to make sure that I get that attention first and foremost.

Evo Terra: 00:08:22

Not really promoting them, but just having it there as the first

Evo Terra: 00:08:25

option, just in case somebody doesn't recognize the other icons on the page.

Evo Terra: 00:08:29

So here's an idea for you.

Evo Terra: 00:08:32

Do the same thing, but not to me.

Evo Terra: 00:08:33

Visit the homepage of a friend of yours in podcasting or somebody you want to be

Evo Terra: 00:08:37

a friend of yours in podcasting, visit their homepage and see where they list

Evo Terra: 00:08:41

the Spotify follow/subscribe/listen button, and then send them a link

Evo Terra: 00:08:47

to this episode and say, here's why it's important for that to be first.

Evo Terra: 00:08:51

Maybe you'll become that person's new best friend.

Evo Terra: 00:08:54

Converse amongst yourselves about the best way to promote without doing

Evo Terra: 00:08:58

that much promotion for Spotify.

Evo Terra: 00:09:00

It's extending the olive branch.

Evo Terra: 00:09:01

Always a nice thing to do.

Evo Terra: 00:09:03

And if you like the ideas that I had to say here on the program, please

Evo Terra: 00:09:05

go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra, and slide a virtual coffee my way.

Evo Terra: 00:09:12

That's always nice.

Evo Terra: 00:09:14

No shows on Friday for me.

Evo Terra: 00:09:15

So you enjoy your weekend and I shall be back on Monday with yet

Evo Terra: 00:09:19

another Podcast Pontifications.