Pitching audio in a visual world
“Audio never goes viral,” wrote radio and podcast producer Nate DiMeo. “If you posted the most incredible story — literally, the most incredible story that has ever been told since people have had the ability to tell stories, it will never, ever get as many hits as a video of a cat with a moustache.”
In conversations on a series we’re writing about the emerging importance of video platforms to publishing companies, we came across a 2014 essay by Stan Alcorn in digg. It remains an original, thorough exploration of why audio is largely incompatible with social media, and explains how audio has achieved virality on a few odd occasions.
It was written in 2014, however, and there have been some inevitable changes since then. The digg article states that the majority of people don’t know what a podcast is. That’s no longer true in 2018: 64% of Americans are aware of it, and podcast consumption continues to grow in the UK and all over the world — with percentages rising further each year.
Beyond the sound barrier
It’s worth noting, though, that audio has — and will likely continue to have — certain barriers that video simply doesn’t have to worry about.
One of them is that audio consumption, to a great extent, happens as a secondary action. (Driving is, as the radio industry knows, an example of that.) In contemporary culture, where social media inform so much, the format can’t just be secondary.
Video thrives on social media networks and in other digital spaces. Much ‘viral content’ is made up of memes, gifs and very short videos. As well as driving higher engagement, live video is also seeing huge response rates.
DepositPhotos created an infographic on 2017 video marketing stats, gathering information from sources such as Cisco and Insivia. They found that a third of the time people spend online is devoted to watching videos. They have also made the prediction that, by 2019, 80% of all internet traffic will come from video.
People are becoming more familiar with audio media, such as podcasts, every year. These do see slower growth than video: in the US, only 26% of Americans listen to podcasts monthly, but that’s still 73 million people.
Podcasts are becoming even more frequently followed by people aged 25 to 54, and increasingly by women. Mobile offers the crucial platform for this: 70% of people who listen to podcasts do so on a mobile device.
Alas, audio has a hard time succeeding on social media, because these platforms are extremely visual, where a video stands out between hundreds of text-only posts or links to websites. It’s harder to promote a new podcast than a new web series, because not everyone is comfortable listening to a snippet of an audio programme, especially during work or school hours.
There’s a reason why so many videos on social media are watched on mute, with subtitles — people don’t want to have to put on earphones to watch every single video on their feeds, and they don’t want noise blasting from their phones when they’re scrolling through Facebook at work.
This also goes for video ads — some digital publications simply don’t understand how much a noisy feature can frustrate readers.
Tuning in
Digital audio is still an important medium to bet on in 2018, especially if you’re a publication.
In September 2018, The New York Times’ biggest hit ‘The Daily’ was second only to true-crime audio series ‘Serial’ in audience numbers. The Guardian currently has 16 active podcast series. Wired UK releases weekly episodes and is close to reaching episode 400.
It may be easier for large publications to acquire listeners than smaller organisations — but it’s still a lot harder to gain listeners than attracting viewers for their 3-minute videos. Promoting audio is a more involved activity. Some of the strategies used include making video podcasts, or sharing bits of video recorded during the podcast episode.
Video is easier to reach, to share, and engage with, quickly. Podcasts and other media usually require longer storytelling, or technical equipment such as VR goggles.
When a video is shared, it always causes a significant impact in audience numbers. Sometimes, behind-the-scenes footage of a podcast will lead to spikes in likes, shares and comments of episodes. As long as the relationship with the audience is being nurtured, that audience will respond, and this is the case across all media.
‘The Daily’, based on interviews with NYT journalists, was a phenomenon in 2017 and has inspired a television show. The FX network bought the rights to create a weekly half-hour series conveniently titled ‘The Weekly’, and made a deal with Hulu to allow it to air the episodes the day after their release. This is only one of the best possible outcomes a podcast could get.
Podcasts may never be as successful as video, but the audio business has profited from technological advances, just as video has.
The increasing popularity of smart home speakers, for example, may be the much needed driver that will push ever more people to embrace audio. So far, these audio devices have seen 21% growth in podcast use year over year.
Audiences who have access to their favourite podcast with a simple voice command have helped the smart speaker industry succeed. Fast adoption rates mean these speakers are becoming a must-have for all ages — a great sign for audio.
Oh, and email newsletters. All publishers do it — most of them don’t get opened.
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