How to get into the Spotify Podcast Charts

Have you wondered how to get into the Spotify Podcast Charts?

I’ve previously done an episode on achieving rankings within Apple Charts and Spotify is now pretty much neck and neck in terms of listenership so I’m sharing my expertise today!

But before you decide where to invest your time, consider who your audience is. The younger generation tends to have the bulk of their listeners coming from Spotify while the older generation listens to Apple Podcasts.

Remember there are different types of charts within Spotify, I’ll run you through each one and share how to feature at the top.

One of our clients had an amazing launch process and got into the Spotify charts within the first few days. They had an awesome listenership, was active on socials and followed the launching steps to achieve remarkable results.

I’m excited to give you the tips to land your show on the charts and points to remember to ensure you have a long term strategy in place to keep delivering quality content with exceptional production value.

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod Hello, hello, everybody what's going on, I thought I'd do an episode on here today about the Spotify podcasting charts. So I did an episode A while back about the how to get on the Apple podcast charts. And now we're doing one on Spotify. Because Spotify certainly has become a very popular way to listen to podcasts, it is now almost neck and neck half and half with Spotify listeners versus Apple podcast listeners.

The thing to note about this is, it still depends on your audience. So we have clients that are a younger generation millennial sort of generation and younger, that have the bulk of their listeners coming from Spotify. And then the older generation, so above millennial and up, you see a lot more people listening through Apple podcasts versus Spotify. So you have to look at who your target is the age group of that target. And whether they're going to be listening mostly on Apple, or Spotify, you won't necessarily know that until you start releasing, to see where people are tuning in mostly from.

For me, for example, for Pump Up Your Pod, when I look at my stats, it's like 99% of people are on Apple podcasts versus Spotify. Like there's almost no one listening to it on Spotify at this point. Because I'm certainly targeting more of the business person, the CEO, the small business owner, those sorts of things. They're normally in their mid to late 30s and onwards, and they're wanting to know more about podcasting, that sort of thing. So it's not skewed as young, and therefore not targeting that Spotify crowd as much as it is the Apple crowd. So that's the first thing to note, whatever you're looking to try and achieve whatever charts you're trying to get into. It may be null and void depending on the demographic that you actually have that will be listening to your show.

All that being said, if Spotify is an area that you think is going to be a winner for you, then let's go through what the deal is with Spotify podcast charts. So they announced their Spotify new podcasting charts in April of 2021. And there's been a lot of changes and updates to those charts since that time, which is really cool. There's a few different types of charts within Spotify, you have top podcasts, this is where you'll find the overall most popular shows. So these are the ones that fans have been listening to for some time. There's a lot of listenership on those lots of downloads every week, every day. And it also has the rising newcomers. So it's determined by a combination of overall follower counts, and the number of recent unique listeners. So if you launch your podcast, and you have done your homework beforehand, you have done behind the scenes, you have a solid audience behind you already. At your launching with multiple episodes. Maybe you're running a giveaway, you're putting all guns blazing, going into this launch, everyone knows about it. And Spotify is your target, then it's possible that you will get into that top podcasts area of Spotify.

We had a client when they first launched their podcast and I won't name them, but they got into the Spotify charts within the first few days because their listenership was awesome, really, really awesome. They launched with multiple episodes, they had a high followership on socials anyway, as well. And they'd been talking about it for quite some time. So it was a really good launch process. And then they were able to get into the Spotify charts, which boosted their show even further, because then they were way more visible. So that's top podcasts. There's also top episodes, and this is where you'll find of the moments sort of trends in what people are listening to. The chart is determined exclusively by the number of you niq listeners on that day. So it's providing you a look into what's kind of buzzworthy at the moment. And that's something that's it's harder to get into. That's kind of the trending stuff. And it's got lots of new unique listeners.

So maybe you've done a PR campaign or you've been featured in a news article or a couple of news articles you've been on, you know, news.com.au for something or whatever any sort of article that has been written about you maybe it's been syndicated, and then you've got lots of unique listeners because of that thing. You're more likely to be able to get into top episodes related to that particular topic, that article and people go on about you know, The algorithms and cheating the system and all these sorts of things. And you know, it is possible to a degree as in if you're launching with a bunch of episodes, as I've mentioned in the Apple podcasts charts episode that I did, if you're launching with a bunch of episodes, and you have a good listenership, a good audience base, a good amount of subscriptions already to the other things that you've got going on, you've got good social following, you've got a good mailing list, X, Y, Zed, you've got the things and then you launch with a bunch of episodes that they can binge, then you're gonna have a much higher chance of getting into those charts.

The other thing that you have to make reference of and be aware of is the actual category that you're listed in, you'll have a higher chance of getting into the top charts of that category. If you're in a category, that you feel like there's less competition in it. Maybe, as an example, which I've used before, we have a client, she is a birth photographer, she could have listed in a bigger category, but she listed in the Visual Arts category, which is a much smaller category. And then she was able to get more visibility because she was in a smaller category. So it was more niched on that particular topic, and then was able to push that way. So that was a creative strategy that we worked with to get that going for her as well.

Things to remember here is that, yeah, you can release a bunch of episodes, if you're wanting to get into the charts, and you're wanting to expand and get massive from the beginning, but you have to have the quality to back it up. So it's all well and good to have a bunch of episodes that you've recorded, you've released all within that week, you know, and they're great, but what have you got coming up? After that? What is your long term strategy? What is the content cycle look like? What is going to keep that person that found you interested long term to actually do something, because the chart is a moment in time, unless you were consistently in the charts and your podcast is going absolutely crazy good. If they found you because you were trending, or because you were in the charts one week, you have to keep up that content that's going to keep them interested. So keep that in mind. production value is paramount. When it's a new show, and you're listed as a top podcast, production value is so paramount. I want you to focus less on where you are in the charts, and more on what is your content look like? Overall? How are you going to grow? What's gonna keep the listener coming back, because they can find you. But if you're not delivering quality, then within a month, I guarantee you there'll be like, if I've heard all this before, or she's not getting any better, or this isn't any new information or the quality of this audio is bad. That's more important to me then where you see it on the charts. And it should be more important to you. What is the growth looking like over time is more important than what are you getting out of the gate.

That's a little quick wrap up for you there on getting into the Spotify charts. Some things that you can do there, just to recap it, do a lot of buzz before you actually release your behind the scenes content is really important. Telling your listeners about it, including it in your mailing list, trying to get an article written, write some LinkedIn articles yourself, maybe hire a small PR company or something to begin with to get the launch out to get it syndicated to get it on news articles and those sorts of things. Anything that you can do before the launch, to get people interested and enticed and then launch with a bunch of episodes. If you feel like you need to because maybe your listenership is smaller, maybe you don't have a massive social following or a massive mailing list. March with however many episodes you think you need to push you up the actual download numbers to get you into the charts if that's really something you're looking to try and do. That's it. Have a good day guys. Nice chat to you as always