Why you should join a growing trend of listening as a blogger Wojtek Just now·3 min read
Photo by Ilias Chebbi on Unsplash
As a blogger you create content in a written form. You want this content to be consumed by other people, but let’s be real, you also want to monetize it. Why wouldn’t you provide your readers with a second option of your content’s consumption?
As you will see below, allowing your readers to listen to your articles can help you reach broader and potentially more engaged audience.
The data used below is about podcasts, but I am not trying to convince you to start recording podcasts so stick till the end where I explain how you can use this information.
How popular are podcasts?
According to Nielsen, 55% (155 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast in 2020. This number went up from 51% in the previous year. Moreover, 50% of all US homes are podcast fans — and this data is for the year 2017, so the number most likely grew by now.
Where do people listen to podcasts?
According to research, 49% of podcast listening is done at home and another 22% is done while driving. This shows that people like to consume content while doing their chores at home as well as while they just cannot read (while driving).
Is there a place for new podcasts?
Podcast listeners listened to an average of 7 different shows per week in 2020, which is up from 5 in 2017. This means that there is quite a lot of room for new podcasts. The most popular podcasting genre is comedy, followed by education and news. So, if your blog is in one of those categories, you have big chance of succeeding.
How to monetize audio?
According to research, podcast listeners are much more active on every social media channel (94% are active on at least one vs 81% for the entire population). This not only means that they are easier to find on social media, but they are also more likely to spread a word about your blog. To add to this, it turns out that podcast listeners are more likely to follow companies and brands on social media. This may be a good information for your business partners.
Finally, 69% of respondents agreed that podcast ads made them aware of new products or services, which is another great information for any brand that decides to partner with you.
The steady growth of podcasts
The chart below comes from Statista and it shows how steady the growth of interest in podcasts is.
So, as you could see, listening is a big and growing trend. But how can you join this trend if you have a blog, and you prefer writing rather than recording podcasts?
Well, there is a solution. You can use a software which allows you to convert your articles into audio using text-to-speech technology. This way you can keep writing blog posts the way you do know but at the same time attract people who prefer listening rather than reading.
I am a co-founder of such software — BlogAudio. It supports 25 languages and offers 97 AI-voices to choose from. I strongly believe it is a solution that can make a positive impact on blog industry as not everyone needs to become a vlogger or podcaster.