Yesterday Spotify had its big Stream On event. This was the first Spotify event I have participated in (when it comes to product release or product information). I have been working as a consultant for Spotify and liked it and joined a few of their parties.
I think the biggest news was that they now will launch in 85 more markets (countries) and where there is 500M potential new users and within a few years 1B users.
It is great that people in these countries get access to music in an easier way. But how will this impact us podcasters? Initially not much. The users that now get Spotify already have internet and can consume podcast’s anyway from other providers. In the longer term usage will increase since the smart Spotify algorithms will show podcasts for new people that may be the right audience.
For me Spotify is a very small consumer of my podcast. For my Swedish show it is around 7-10% of the listens (downloads) that comes from Spotify. This “high” number is likely becuase of some marketing was done using a Spotify link. For this show it is less than 1%.
There was some news related to podcasting that I find more interesting. And a lot of the things they are announced will be delivered with the mechanics of Anchor.
- Start to include Music in your podcast and Spotify will pay for the royalties the same way they pay for royalties today (of course only if the podcast is hosted on Anchor).
- New WordPress plugin that helps writers to create podcasts from the written content. Text-to-speech?
- Interact with the listeners through polls and other direct form of communications.
They also talked about better statistics (mainly for Ad buyers) related to podcasting. E.g. downloads vs listens.
Today they have Streaming Ad Insertion. The Spotify add network will be extended so that buyers easier can find also podcasts they want to advertise on. This will happen first to exclusive and hosted (anchor) podcasts but will also be made available for third-party podcasts later.
I think these are both good and bad things. It can help podcasters to make money on their show, if that now is a goal. But the number of streams (and thus adplays) to make any money at all will be fairly big – that means that most podcasts will not get anything or a very small amount of money. It is probably better to negotiate the ad deals individually with companies fitting your niche directly.
As a Podcaster I think it is a dangerous game to put all the eggs in one basket. Spotify is a privately owned company and can at any time change who can be available through their platform. Thus multiple places to market your show is a really good thing.
If you like this show please share it with your friends and family. Or why not, go into Itunes and rate it and leave a review. That would be so much appreciated! If you have any feedback, questions or comments feel free to get in touch with me – you can find all the links on the website, martinhaagen.se/about.