Podcast Movement 2021: 3 Key Takeaways

Sadly the majority of Triton’s Omny Studio team wasn’t able to attend Podcast Movement this year, with the exception of one lucky robot. We did, however, keep our finger on the pulse of what was released, announced and teased at the world’s biggest podcasting conference — and we’ve rounded up the highlights for you here.

Here are the three biggest things you need to know from Podcast Movement 2021.

Key point #1 — Facebook is coming to the Podcasts party!

Facebook Podcasts

As Facebook shared in their session at Podcast Movement, “170 million users already like podcast pages on Facebook, and over 35 million users are part of at least one podcast fan group”. Podcasting already has a footprint on the big blue social app, and it’s about to get a lot bigger.

Available now for ‘certain, selected podcasts’ and visible (to US users) on Facebook today is the Podcasts feature, which means you will no longer have to leave the Facebook app to listen to a podcast episode. As a result, Facebook’s social graph will without a doubt boost discovery via personalised podcast recommendations for Facebook users.

This is still an early feature release, with a staged rollout. Captions, and promo clip creation and sharing, are two of the announced features to launch in coming months. When these become available, a podcaster will be able to upload their RSS feed, meaning new episodes will be automatically available on Facebook for your listeners to comment on and share with friends. We understand that the serving of ads in your podcast will function as normal through Facebook playback.

Things to know:

• This will use your existing, current RSS feed — meaning you’re ready to go with your Omny-hosted podcast straightaway.
• Facebook is advising podcasters to create a Facebook Page for their show, if they don’t have one already.
• Pages will need to be at least 90 days old before you can add an RSS feed.
• There will be support for multiple podcasts.
• Podcast playback can carry on in the background, when another app is in use or a device’s screen is off.

Facebook Clips, is it time for ‘scrollable audio’?

Quick question, how would a listener post their favourite episode of your podcast on Facebook?

Even if they figure out a way, it’ll likely be a link to their particular podcast app, or a screenshot, or just plain text. Facebook clips are Facebook native social posts for podcast promotion. We’re excited for more details, but for now, all we know is this is coming.

Facebook Social Discovery

Yeah, 3 in a row. Last Facebook highlight, we swear!

The Social Discovery destination is under the Facebook Watch tab, and surfaces popular content with your friends, or podcasts Facebook will think you’ll like. After a slew of startups have tried to crack socially-weighted podcast discovery, and after a decade of human-curated podcast playlists as made popular by Apple Podcasts and echoed by all other directories, it’s nice to see some innovation (at scale) in the podcast discovery space.

Key point #2 — Podcasting in 2021, it’s still all about the content!

Tom Webster from Edison Research kicked off Podcast Movement 2021 with this keen insight.

“Rather than asking how you can grow your audience, ask why your numbers have hit a plateau,” Webster said. “Downloads stop growing because people stop recommending your show. Everyone who listens needs to tell two friends.”

And why should your listeners recommend your show? Representation and diversity might be two key reasons.

Diversity in voices, perspectives and backgrounds was a big topic at Podcast Movement and we were thrilled to see it. A big trend we’re noticing that supports this is the popularity of localizing popular shows into new languages and regions. It’s something to keep in mind when looking at ways to develop and monetize IP, or to potentially license the IP of another publisher, to have a series ready to adapt and publish.

This is a great way of delivering value to your listeners, and ultimately content that’s valuable (relevant, representative, using a local context) is content that’s worth recommending.

Key point #3 — We’re not saturated yet!

After a brief scare that podcast downloads had sharply decreased year-over-year, the growth narrative for podcasts are back. And for context, YouTube has over 37 million channels… so saturation at this stage may be an overstatement.

And even as the acquisitions (in 7, 8, even 9 figures) grab the headlines and the rest of the world is seeing podcasting catching some of the glow of the ‘new Hollywood’ — it’s still a really convivial, collegial, genial, all round friendly community.

With there still being room for growth, and with the big blue social network coming onboard to potentially shake-up discovery, now’s not a bad time for new podcasters to jump in the pool.

It’s been great to follow along with the three days in Nashville, seeing smiling eyes and thumbs up all around — or meeting virtually with other remote attendees.

And, a bonus! #RobotSharon

I mean who can help but love an intrepid, two-wheeled telepresence bot trunding around Podcast Movement, piloted by our own Sharon Taylor from Melbourne, Australia. Getting stuck in elevators, trapped behind closed doors, challenged to dance battles…including the Electric Slide and numerous selfies, but most important the number of amazing people who she connected with! Thanks to everyone who came over to say hi and for technology like the robot who let Sharon not miss her 8th Podcast Movement!

What will the highlight of PM 2022 be?
Will it become Robot Wars?
We look forward to finding out!