The latest Gen-Z podcast listening behaviour is out and I'm surprised
As the head of Bamby Media, a company that specializes in podcast production, I am always interested in the latest trends and insights into the podcast industry. Recently, Edison Research released a report on how Gen Z listens to podcasts, and the results are fascinating. In this article, I will explore the main themes of the report, provide an in-depth analysis and discuss the implications and potential impact of these findings.
The Cliff Notes
The Gen Z report from Edison Research highlights several key themes that are important for podcasters to understand. Firstly, Gen Z is incredibly engaged with podcasts and loves to binge-listen. Secondly, they are highly receptive to podcast advertising and take action on the ads they hear more than other generations do. Thirdly, social media plays a significant role in how Gen Z discovers new podcasts. Finally, video is a crucial component of podcast listening for Gen Z, with a vast majority of monthly podcast listeners watching or listening to podcasts with a video component.
Let's dive deeper into each of these themes and explore what it means for podcasters.
Binge Listening is the Norm for Gen Z
One of the most significant findings of the Edison Research report is that Gen Z loves to binge-listen to podcasts. This is something we here at Bamby Media have seen firsthand with the podcasts we produce.
This finding has significant implications for podcasters. It means that launching a podcast with just one episode may not be enough to capture the attention of Gen Z listeners. Instead, podcasters should consider launching multiple episodes to cater to their binge-listening habits.
Gen Z is Highly Receptive to Podcast Advertising
Another crucial finding of the Edison Research report is that Gen Z is highly receptive to podcast advertising. In fact, they take action on the ads they hear on podcasts more than other generations do. This finding is excellent news for brands looking to target Gen Z audiences.
Social Media Plays a Significant Role in Discovering New Podcasts
The Edison Research report found that social media plays a significant role in how Gen Z discovers new podcasts. Specifically, 25% of people in the 13-24 age bracket discovered podcasts through social media, while 19% discovered them through social media influencers or personality pages they follow.
This finding underscores the importance of social media for podcasters looking to reach Gen Z audiences. It means that podcasters should be using social media to promote their podcasts and create engaging video snippets to capture the attention of potential listeners.
Video is Crucial for Podcast Listening Among Gen Z
The Edison Research report found that video is a crucial component of podcast listening for Gen Z. In fact, 84% of Gen Z monthly podcast listeners listen to or watch podcasts with a video component. This has significant implications for podcasters, as it means that creating video content to accompany podcasts can be a highly effective way to reach Gen Z audiences.
"YouTube is the largest podcast listening platform in the US...if you don't have a video component, then you're really missing something there that you could be taking advantage of and growing an audience."
Podcasters should be considering how they can incorporate video into their podcasting strategy to maximize their reach.
What’s the crystal ball say?
Looking to the future, it is clear that podcasting will continue to be a popular medium among Gen Z audiences. By understanding how this audience listens to podcasts, podcasters can create content that resonates with them and reaches a wider audience. It means that podcasters who are willing to adapt their strategies to cater to Gen Z listeners will be well-positioned to succeed in the highly competitive podcast industry.
Transcript:
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to my face. My name is Brianna Ansaldo. I'm the head honcho here at Bamby Media. Today I'm going to be discussing the Ben Z report from Edison Research all about how they listen to podcasts. If you are watching on YouTube, you will have the benefit of having a screen share of the data right in front of you as I'm going to be explaining it.
[00:00:25] And if you are listening to this on the podcast, then that's cool as well. I will explain things the best that I can. I'm not gonna go through the whole report cuz it is a little bit lengthy, but I'm gonna pick out the things that I think are of particular interest and are really important for you as a podcaster to make sure that you are aware of.
[00:00:44] So the listening behaviors of Gen Z, they are incredibly engaged with podcasts. And they love to binge listen. So if your podcast, when you launch it, you have multiple episodes ready to go for them, and then you launch it, they're gonna binge, As far as podcast advertising goes, Gen Z really listens to podcast ads and
[00:01:07] Gen Z take action on the ads that they hear on podcasts more than other generations do, which is very interesting. If you are working with a brand or if you're a brand yourself, knowing that. Advertising in podcasts. If your market is for Gen Z, then you're gonna be hitting it, uh, really well. So something to be aware of there as well.
[00:01:30] The bit of data that I found the most interesting is how did you first discover podcasts? So this is the Gen Z bracket between ages 13 and 24. 25% of people saw it on social media first. 19% saw it on social media, influencer or personality pages that they've followed. So you've got a big whack of people straight up that the first place that they hear about podcasts is actually through social media.
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] And a lot of that is through the video social snippets that you see people posting that we post for all our clients. , that is the engagement. So even though you might not get a, like a, like. Or a comment or something. They've still physically seen it and then they've remembered it. If the snippets good enough, if the video hits well and it's, you know, got good production value or it's a really juicy topic or something like that, they've seen it.
[00:02:26] They might not go and engage with it straight away, but it's like that brand recognition. That's why video snippets are so important. Audiograms less so, but there are different ways that you can work with audiograms to make them hit a little bit better. But video snippets for this generation and. For other generations too.
[00:02:43] But this one particularly, it's so important to have really good video snippets because that's where most people are finding out about new shows, how are Gen Z listening to podcasts? 28% of Gen Z listen to podcasts nearly every day they frequently listen with headphones at 68%.
[00:03:04] They recommend their podcast to family and friends. 83% of people do that. This word of mouth is still a massive growth metric. So if you think about how you can kind of pull this into your strategy, you record your episode with video using either really amazing, good quality stuff like we do here at.
[00:03:25] Bamby Media, or you use Riverside, you use a webcam, whatever it is that you're doing. Then make snippets out of that, and preferably also put it on YouTube, and then also know that if they've then engaged with it, they're 83% more likely to recommend that through word of mouth to their friends and family.
[00:03:47] 69% of Gen Z listen to podcasts while they're just walking around on foot, which is really cool because you've kind of got a captive audience there, right? They're not. Cleaning or cooking or you know, engaging with other things.
[00:04:00] And I think that's why the podcast advertising really hits well as well, because again, they're not distracted by other things. They're just maybe walking to a friend's house or walking to the shops or walking around the city or whatever you are. The only thing that's happening for them at that time, 84% of Gen Z monthly podcast listeners, listen to or watch podcast with a video component this is really something I want you to take away, and I've, I've hit on this quite a few times on the podcast as well.
[00:04:32] The importance of video to actually grow at your podcast. It is nice. And I know there's an argument for just having audio because it feels like there's a barrier that's sometimes nice to have. So for you as a podcast, , creator, you know, you don't always wanna have the fancy lights and maybe you forward the camera and
[00:04:53] maybe you don't wanna get yourself all pried up. Maybe you just wanna look like a shlub in your sleeping outfit. You know, you've got your, fluffy slippers on, no makeup and whatever. You just rolled outta bed and you just wanna record something. You may not wanna get in front of video there, although I argue that that vulnerability, that authenticity, actually will do you a favor as well.
[00:05:15] You don't have to look freaking amazing all the time, especially depending on the content. But if you don't feel like video, it's like a barrier for you to go, Ugh, now I have to set everything up. And maybe you don't even record then because you're like, that's a hurdle that I can't be bothered to get over.
[00:05:33] But if you do record in video, then you are hitting a market that you are not hitting otherwise. That's just the fact of it. YouTube is the largest podcast listening platform . In the US and in Australia. And so if you don't have a video component, then you're really missing something there that you could be taking advantage of and growing an audience.
[00:05:58] And also it makes it so [00:06:00] easy to then get the video snippets out, which you know that Gen Z are also engaging with. In a great way,
[00:06:07] 71% of them consume podcasts with video that they actively watch Which I found particularly interesting because I know for me personally, I'm on YouTube listening to podcasts, but I'm doing other things at the same time.
[00:06:21] So I might be writing emails or I might be, you know, doing something for my workday, or I might be fiddling with our website, creating content, that sort of thing. And then I'm kind of, I have it on as another tab, but for Gen Z, they're literally watching it. And that's really cool. And then it also takes me back to that, when you think about what Gen Z has going on in their lives, it's less, it's probably less than, you know, a business owner does.
[00:06:48] They've got more time to actually engage. With the content, with video and just sit and consume, man, that makes me jealous. I wanna do that. That sounds amazing. ,
[00:07:01] 78% of Gen Z love to binge They love binging podcasts. The categories that they most often want to listen to that are binging or binge worthy are 50% comedy, 45% entertainment, celebrity, and gossip, and then 44% of true crime. This makes sense. Right. If you think about these genres, comedy, entertainment, gossip, true crime, it's like it's so easy to binge that, especially true crime because you want like that seasonality of it, and you wanna go to the next thing, go, oh my gosh, did they catch that person?
[00:07:36] Or the mystery behind it. Same reason why if you get on a streaming service and you're watching a show, you wanna binge it because you wanna get the whole story.
[00:07:45] 84% actually engage with podcasts through social media
[00:07:51] that is why it's important to grow a social channel and have some sort of snippets that you have from your [00:08:00] podcast that you share. On your socials. This is not just for Gen Z, this is for all generations, but particularly interesting for Gen Z because they are the most connected on social media. Now we're into the juiciest of Bits. Sources used to discover podcast, 76% are brief podcast clips on social media This is the winning strategy. If you don't do this, please start doing this,
[00:08:30] and if you need help or if you want us to help you with your video snippets or your podcast production more generally, repurposing things and all that, then reach out to us.
[00:08:38] So if they've not connected through the podcast clips, then indeed social media posters next at 74% recommendations area of YouTube. So that little sidebar area recommendations. So if you are feeding, , podcast advertising through YouTube as well, then a good place to be is in that recommendations tab.
[00:08:57] 70% are from their friends and family, so word of mouth is still very high. And also just going to like their podcast listening platform and using the app to find new shows as well. So that's something where your podcast cover artwork is going to be, integral to people finding your show through that medium as well.
[00:09:17] How did Gen Z find out about podcasts? 84% say through YouTube youTube is the biggest method of Gen Z binding out about podcasts. Are you not on YouTube? I hope this is the kick up the pants to go, okay, maybe I should get on YouTube. And again, yes, this is Gen Z that we're discussing right now, but it doesn't just apply to Gen Z.
[00:09:45] I'm seeing it everywhere. I'm seeing it in statistics, not just for this generation, but for other generations as well. The only one where, you know it's not as high is YouTube in, you know, sort of the boomers. They don't. Watch
[00:10:00] YouTube as much, so you gotta get them other ways.
[00:10:03] TikTok is at 80% saying, yes, Instagram 71%, Facebook at 55, Twitter at 55, and then right down the bottom, which doesn't surprise me at all, is LinkedIn at 24% and something called Be Real, which I actually don't know what that is. So there is a lot to get out of this particular report, and I'm not even halfway through, but I wanted this to be the thing that you take away from it if you're looking at exploring a different strategy for your show. Then video is where you should start the video snippets that you create are important.
[00:10:41] is your audio quality good? Is your video quality good? And if it's not, gen Z are picky. Okay. Like they, they get the real relatable, authentic stuff, and it's okay to sometimes have a, a crappy looking, you know, pixelated sort of video, but over the long term, you're not going to hit the market that you wanna hit.
[00:11:03] If you have bad audio quality and bad video quality, audio quality matters more. The video quality, the statistics have shown that like right off the bat, but these two things you really need to sort out. If you are confused about what you need, then I would suggest going to the gear section of the Bambi Media website.
[00:11:22] We've got a whole list of things specifically for podcasters, You can also, uh, actually book in consults with us for your setup. So if you have the gear, you've bought the gear from our site, and you're like, well, how do I set this up?
[00:11:34] Probably now you can definitely reach out to us and we have 90 minute sessions where we go through and actually set up your studio for you virtually. Which is really, really cool. We also do it on location as well. If you happen to be in Brisbane or somewhere in the surrounds of that in Australia, then we will come to you and we will set it up for you as well.
[00:11:54] Our team will. So video is important, YouTube is important. the [00:12:00] content has to be good so that when you go and pull a snippet out, you have a good snippet to work with. If you don't have a quality snippet, then you're not gonna get, it's not gonna land. A good example of that would be a client of ours, , in the trenches. we pulled out a snippet from one of their episodes it went viral very quickly because the content was hard. It was creating awareness for an issue that really needed to be created for the video quality and the audio quality were fantastic, and all the little graphics and the things that we put in there.
[00:12:36] Just accentuated it as well. So it went viral and it has created massive awareness. That particular episode went bonkers as well. Lots of downloads, lots of YouTube video, uh, views, all the things, and it created from that one video snippet. So it's something to be aware of there, how you're engaging, how you're pushing this stuff out, and just really up level your game if you've been.
[00:13:00] Doing a podcast for a while, and you're still doing it in the same way that you were doing it before, then you're not really gonna be increasing your traffic to your podcast because nothing's changed. It gets to a point where they go, oh yeah, that's that person. They do it this way. Nothing ever changes subconsciously they move on.
[00:13:20] Uh, and so if you can continually have that in your brain, How am I upleveling this show? How am I making it more interesting? Am I increasing my quality? Am I doing more research into my content? What am I doing to make sure that I'm hitting the market that I want to hit? It's really important to, for you to have those kind of conversations with yourself and anyone else that you have on your team to make sure that you're always striving to just give the best possible content that you can.
[00:13:50] That's it for me today. If you've enjoyed this content, please hit the like button on YouTube. I hope you've got some great value out of this. If you haven't been following me on [00:14:00] podcast platforms, then please hit that little follow plus button as well. There'll be much more information coming at you all the time here, and I am excited to give you all the.
[00:14:11] Stuff. Have a good day. Bye.
