The Rise of the Podcasting Algorithm | Alex Sanfilippo

Podcast discoverability is changing; old podcast growth tactics are fading, and a new reality is here. Podcast listeners are discovering shows through algorithms! Thankfully, there’s a way to create content that will automatically get recommended to listeners! In this episode, Alex Sanfilippo explains the top-ranking factors that the podcasting algorithm favors and how to ensure your show is positioned correctly. Get ready to unleash more organic growth than ever before!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/367

Chapters

00:00 From Zero to Thousands: The Podcasting Journey
03:16 The Rise of Algorithms in Podcasting
06:32 Engagement Metrics: Time on Screen
11:44 Strategies for Longer Listener Retention
17:21 The Future of Podcasting: Serving One to Grow Many

Takeaways

I went from just a few people listening to thousands.
The algorithm in podcasting is a dirty word.
Time on screen is the only important metric.
Improve your sound and video quality.
Shorten your introductions and your outros.
Make sure the content follows a narrative.
Infotainment is the goal.
Be real, be raw, be relevant.
The algorithm is going to hold us accountable.
Serve that one person the best you can.

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/367

Chapters

• 0:00 From Zero to Thousands: The Podcasting Journey
• 3:16 The Rise of Algorithms in Podcasting
• 6:32 Engagement Metrics: Time on Screen
• 11:44 Strategies for Longer Listener Retention
• 17:21 The Future of Podcasting: Serving One to Grow Many

Transcript

0:01

You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. When I first got started in podcasting, I had zero people listening to my show. Listen, maybe that's a little bit exaggeration. My mom was listening, so I had at least one person listening, but the reality is I had really low numbers. But then I literally did one thing, one thing to my show. And within just a couple of weeks, I went from just a few people listening to literally thousands of people listening to every episode, ranking on search engines, top of my category for my show. It was an exhilarating experience. And today I'm really happy to share that with you. Hey, my name is Alex Sanfilippo if I've not met you and I'm really excited to dive into this. Now, first, I just have to say, I hope that hooked you a little bit there, right? It is the truth, but it's not something we can do anymore. Now, hold on, don't like disappear and be like, oh man, can't, what do you mean I can't do it anymore? I'm gonna share what I did, but I'm also gonna share what's coming next and why I think it's actually even better. It's how we can capitalize in a similar way. Now, when I first started my show that I just referenced, it went from zero to thousands. what felt like overnight, was again, really exhilarating, was a fun thing to be part of. Search engines were different. The podcast player apps were different. The way that people searched, the way we did anything online was different. So I'm dating myself here. This was a while ago. But my show was a faith-based show. I'm a follower of Jesus and I was talking about my faith. The show was called Paradigm Shift, which doesn't really mean anything. It's a shift in our thinking, right? But as a show, like the name is kind of hard to spell maybe, and at least for me. and maybe didn't really mean anything. And so I just decided, I'm like, you know what? Let me just try a more literal name. I changed the show to Good Christian Podcast. Good Christian Podcast, three words. And I was like, let's just see what happens. Changed my hosting provider, waited a couple of days and just kept on going my way. Didn't really change anything else about the show. Everything was pretty much exactly the same. Well, I started noticing something. The next day I was like, oh, there's a lot more people listening. Just like a couple hundred people overnight. Oh, a couple thousand the next night. Oh, wow, these numbers are crazy. And then started going to search engines, places like Google, typing in the name of my show or typing in just Christian podcast. My show was number one on those. was number one in the category on Apple and all the other places you could listen to podcasts. And I was literally having thousands of people find my show. And again, that was a different time of the world. People would not type in questions back then. Like now, if you were looking for a Christian podcast, type in, what's a good Christian podcast for me to listen to? Back then, our brains weren't really evolved to that yet, which sounds weird to say. But if you were looking for that, would only type in the words you were looking for. So you type in good Christian podcast, the name of my show. What do you know? And search engines and all the player apps back then ranked based off of words only. There was no reputation involved. There was no such thing as word stuffing yet. Like all these things didn't exist. So guess what? Everyone was typing in good Christian podcast and guess what show came up? Mine every single time. I capitalize big time on that. And so listen, this doesn't work anymore. Now side note, it is still important to name your content what it's about. that is very important because when people see it, you still want them to click into it and actually want to check it out, right? So I think that that show name was solid even in today's world, but I really capitalized on a different time the internet and thankfully evolved. And now that I've dated myself, I want to get into what I think is coming next. Now this might scare some of you and there's some podcasting gurus out there. They're not going to like them even bring this up. So I'm sorry to all of you OGs out there. The algorithm in podcasting, the rise of the algorithm in podcasting. In the podcasting space, I will admit this is a dirty word. Like the industry people that I kind of roll with will not like to hear me say that word because it is a big no-no in our space. But I cannot share it because I believe it's coming and I believe there's a way for us as independent podcast guests and hosts to position ourselves to really capitalize on this. So I want to talk you about this idea of the algorithm and I'll get into at the end why I think this is actually a good thing. I'll dive into that really deep, but I want to share some ideas first. First off, how does an algorithm work? Algorithms have evolved over time, but now there is just one thing. There is one ranking factor that matters above everything else. And I could really say, I could argue, that is literally the only important metric. And I know there's people everywhere that are like, you need more comments, you need more of this, you need more that, you need to tag people, you gotta go with accessibility. All this stuff is important, sure, but there's only one thing that actually matters to an algorithm. You ready? That one thing is time on screen. Time on screen. What that means, we'll just take some of the scrolling social media things as an example. When you're scrolling and flipping through them, right? When you stop and you watch, you listen, you read, whatever you're doing with that on screen is telling the algorithm, this is valuable because it made somebody stop. If you're scrolling, you're like, cool video, keep on going. That doesn't even show that it's valuable actually. What's valuable is the stop. Zero interaction, doesn't matter. All these apps are tracking the fact that you are doing something with that on screen. All the different social media profiles, the YouTubes of the world, everything at this point, they have one goal, which is to keep you engaged for as long as they possibly can. So they built their algorithm to ensure that that is happening. How do they know that you're staying around? By stopping, by finding something of interest. When you're just doom scrolling through it, they already know they're doomed. You're gonna leave at some point when you just get burned out of doing that. But when you stop, it says, hey, hey, hey, they like that. find more things like that now, quick, quick, just like that, show them more of those because they will stay, they will doom scroll slower, they will stay longer, but if they're just flipping through fast, not interested, they're out of there and we can't afford to have people leave. The goal is to keep you on screen 24 seven, right? Like that's the end of the goal. Listen, if you all don't know that social media and about YouTube and all these things, you're welcome. Like that is how it's going to work for all of eternity. That is the ultimate. And then the goal after that is once they find something you like, is to give you more things like that. That's important. We're going come back to that. So it's more things like that, not more random things and like, let's just try this. Let's try this. No, no, you like motorcycles. We're going to show you a ton of motorcycle stuff, right? And then we might throw in motorcycle plus this. Okay. You like that too. Let's show you some of that. That's how these algorithms work. And AI has set this stuff on fire, but that's how it's all going to work moving forward. I'm seeing the rises algorithm come to podcasting as well. Now it's not necessarily on screen because it's not our eyes that thereafter. It's the ears. And so how does this work in podcasting? It's really simple. How long are people listening to your content? How long are people listening? Which brings up the question that we all need to be asking ourselves and the goal that we all should have as podcast guests and hosts, which is how do we get people to listen for longer? How do we ensure that they are going to stick with the podcast from the time it starts till the very end of it? Now, again, this might sound scary, but this is actually good for all of us. I'm gonna share that at the end, but before I do that, I've got six ideas on how we can get people to listen longer. This is both for guests and hosts. So I encourage you take some notes. Going to go through this stuff really quick. Number one, the first way we can get people to listen for longer is to improve the niche of your content and then deliver on that promise. So whatever your content is about and you say, this is what it's about. You better deliver on it. Cause the promise is what you say it is. The actual episodes, the content itself. So not just like the theme that people see, the show title description or your experience as a guest. That's the promise. The delivery is making that really good. That's what we've got to do. These algorithms are never going to recommend a show that's for everybody. You're going to miss out if your show is really broad and has a big reach. The more narrow, the more niche it is, the easier it is for the algorithm to say they like this type of content, show them this one too, because it's also something similar or related to it, that we know that people that like this will also like this. But guess what? When your show is for everybody, it's for nobody, because nobody's everybody. And when you're that guest, it's trying to appeal to the masses and everybody, it's not gonna work. Cause nobody really relates with being everybody. Everybody, somebody specific, something unique. You've got to pick and choose your stories as a guest, as a host. You've got to really be picky with who comes on as a guest. The stories that have to relate to what your show is about. What you share as the host has to really, really tie into what you say my niche is. Who I show up for is this person. So everything I share is gonna be along those lines. The better we get at this, the better we're going to be able to rank as this algorithm shows up. Number two, this is a really simple, practical one, but improve your sound and video quality. If you're not doing video, by the way, it's not required. It never will be. Podcasting is an audio medium, first and foremost, and is its own thing. is okay to just be audio. So I'm not telling you need to do both, but whichever one you're doing, if it is either or or both, I guess you can't do either or. If you're video or you're audio only, then you have to make it sound good. The days of people forgiving us for it not sounding good, I believe are behind us. You know that big podcast I talked about, Good Christian podcast that just absolutely crushed it? I was using just my iPhone and often recording my car. It sounded terrible. I got zero complaints. No one ever complained about it. If I did that now with this podcast, you all even here would be like, what on earth, Alex, get a microphone, dude, right? The world has changed. Times have changed. Invest in a microphone. If you're doing video, invest in a camera. They're not expensive. And this small investment goes a really, really long way in keeping people engaged. And if you're the host, make sure the editing is good. Make sure the mixing and mastering is good. Guess, I'm talking to you too. Don't use your built-in stuff. Invest a little bit of money. goes a really, really long way. And I think you'll actually get booked on more shows. So it's a little tip for you there. All right, next up, this third point here is to shorten your introductions and your outros. So the intro, the outro, they need to be shortened. I think that instead of doing something static, I think it's time to let that go. We need a hook at the beginning. We need a call to action at the end, each unique to what the episode's about versus just, Hey, are you listening to this show? Believe us a five star rating review. We got episodes about this, this, this, this is episode number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? Like that, kind of makes people be like, Oh man, I've heard this a million times, right? Or just, okay, tuning out. What is this? Right? Start with something really engaging, or you can go my route. I think my introduction to my show is three seconds or three and a half seconds long, and it's straight into the action. So what you heard me say happens three seconds after it starts, it has a pretty good retention rate. And so. As the host, think about what you actually want to be said immediately. Some of the best shows I'm listening to now, they don't have an introduction anymore. They roll straight into, hey, Alex, welcome to the show. Hey, something you said that was really interesting to me. And they kind of just roll right into it. I'm like, dang, caught me from the first second, right? Like, okay, I'm in, what do you got? And at the end, the call to action, instead of it being, hey, if you enjoyed this show, leave a five-star review. No, no, no. What is the next step? What do you want them to do? Hey, if you liked this episode, there's one more I want you to listen to, because it's very much so related to this and we'll continue the conversation. Go here, listen to this. Right? Now, if you're the guest, you're like, okay, Alex, well, I'm not really in charge of the introduction or the outro of the show, right? Sure, you're not, but you probably are getting asked, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. First off, that best be really short, right? Like, or the introduction that your host is reading, make sure it's really short. It does not need to be your full list of credentials. I get that many of us are very accomplished and kudos to you on that. But listen, what matters for that episode? Keep it really, really short. So people were like, wow, this is sweet. Now I'm like, okay, cool. We're on page four of his resume. Here she goes again sharing about her achievements. We're still 20 years ago, right? Like, no, it's gotta be like, hey, I'm this person, I kind of started here and now I'm here. I'm really excited talk about this today. Great, now we can get into what this is actually about versus just being a resume reading competition, right? So you wanna make sure that whatever you're sharing at that beginning, when you're told to introduce yourself, tell us about yourself, make it really short and drive the point of what you're gonna talk about. The end, where can listeners find out more about you, right? That's regularly what you're asked. This needs to be very short and it needs to have a really strong hook. One thing, very brief, not a long explanation or 10 places they can find you, really, really short, because it'll keep people there if they can retain it without feeling like they're getting overwhelmed by it. Okay? Really important. This is both guest and host jobs to make sure they do a good job with the introductions and the outros as well. Number four, make sure that the content you're producing follows a narrative so it's hard to stop listening. It's a longer point, right? But make sure the content follows a narrative so it's hard for people to stop listening. What I mean by that is it doesn't need to be like some sort of like, and then one day, then what happened next? And here they are, right? Like it doesn't need to be like a true story or fall like a movie, but the end of the day, it can't just be a bunch of random questions. So if you have an interview based podcast or even it's so, it can't just be random answers, random questions. It's got to follow some sort of flow. So people aren't like, wait, we were just talking about their 15 year career, but then we jumped back to college and now we're talking about what they're doing today. And now we're talking about their childhood, right? You can kind of obviously figure out where you should have gone. Childhood, school, their first job, what they're doing now versus just ping ponging around. And I get it as hosts, many of us, have random questions we want to answer ourselves. But if it's random, maybe ask when it's offline. If it's really valuable, find a way to make some bonus content or something like that for people that can go subscribe and they can listen to your extra questions, right? But the episodes need to follow a narrative. Guests, same thing for you. No side quests. No side quests. As a guest, there's a temptation when the host says something like, I got a story about that that you're gonna love, but the story doesn't follow the narrative. Skip the story. If people will thank you for skipping the story, if you can follow the narrative to make it something that people who are listening are like, man, I'm following this whole journey from start to finish. It all makes sense. I get it. I don't wanna stop listening because I'm following along with it. It makes it easier for people's minds to process and to remember. So you wanna keep it kind of like a story. This goes hand in hand with my fifth point here, which is infotainment. Infotainment is the goal. So you want info time, means information, right? The stuff that we need to learn, but also entertaining at the same time. Getting good at this is so important. Actually, you know who I think is getting really good this? A lot of comedians. Comedians are becoming really good storytellers, but also they're throwing in some facts that like many of us are like, oh shoot, I didn't know that, I should write that down. Followed by a really witty joke that you're like, that's sweet. I'm gonna remember this, and now I'm gonna make people laugh with it, right? Like, and listen, we don't all need to be comedians, and some of us have very serious podcasts, but we need to find a way to engage more of our humanity in this. to let it shine, your true personality is where entertainment comes from. It doesn't mean that you're a funny person. Like, I'll be real, I'm not much of a comedian. I don't consider myself a very funny person. But here's the thing, I talk fast, I talk loud, I'm not going to change that. Now I might mirror my host a little bit, because I think that's kind of like a pro thing to do. But the way I show up as entertaining is by talking fast, by being loud, by sharing in a very passionate way. So what I'm sharing today, even I hope these six points are helpful, but I hope it's also entertaining the way that I'm sharing it. And I encourage you really think about how to do that for yourself. It takes some practice, but both as a guest and a host, we can get there. I kind of already hit it at this last point. Number six, these things kind of all flow together, right? This is to let your humanity shine. Be real, be raw, be relevant. The less you can use AI to help you with any part of podcasting, the better. Now I say any part of podcasting. Your transcript, use AI. Come with a good title and description when you feel like you're not good at that, that's great. Your little cover art, that's good. But your talking points, I don't think so. Come up with your own questions, come up with your own answers. Don't let it write your introduction for you because as soon as you do this, it makes it one dimensional and people do not connect with one dimensional type of content. And we're seeing this idea of AI fatigue coming up really quick. You wanna get listeners to stop listening fast? Create an AI introduction that you read, so human read, but AI written introduction of your guest to start off the episode. My guest is a beacon of light today. They have been awarded many accolades that you are going to just be filled with awe and wonder because of their grand achievements. Like people don't talk like that, please, right? Like that is annoying. And for most of us, we immediately go, nope, next podcast. And there's data that's showing you got about just a few seconds to hook somebody. And the guests, you listen, if you're the guest here and you're like, yeah, this is a hard question, help me condense it AI. Don't do that, figure it out yourself. It takes hard work, right? Be real, be raw. Be relevant. You do that by being human, not by being anything else. We want to hear you cry a little bit sometimes. We want to hear you laugh a little bit. We want to hear you stutter a little bit. We want to know that you're sharing really authentically. And sometimes you're even holding back like, I don't know if I'm ready talk about this yet. That stuff, that is the stuff that makes listeners say, I like this. I want to be involved in whatever this is right here. That's where your humanity shine. And I'll tell you what, everyone who's using AI is making a lot easier for the rest of us that aren't. Be the person that does this. And I'm telling you, you're really going to stand out. Okay, those are my six points. Now, why do I think this algorithm thing is good? It's leveling the playing field. If you can do these six things I talked about and this algorithm does start showing up more and more and more, it doesn't just mean all the big shows get recognized, right? Because so many of us, I know we probably all feel the same way. There's the same guests and the same hosts on every app. You log in, you see the same faces, you see the same people as guests showing up because they're the quote unquote big names and they're the big shows, right? But listen, when the algorithm determines that like, hey, Some of these aren't being listened to much. These are just famous people with good marketing tactics. Might not be good content. And it's showing because people aren't listening to it. But hey, hold on, who's this person that no one's ever heard of that everyone's listening to the entire episode and it's on the same topic? Let's show that one to people because that's keeping people on our app longer. And that's more important than famous people getting a pat on the back. And listen, I'm not talking about bad, famous people. Some of are actually really good and they're going to always rank really high and they've got the fame for it, right? That's good. They've probably, probably there because of that. But good marketers, just for the sake of being good marketers, are not going to stand out as much anymore. What's gonna stand out is people who can actually create good content. When I think back 20 years ago, at one point, you had to be talented to have a platform. Like you were not gonna be given a platform unless you were talented. But now, any of us can have a platform. We can all launch it. You don't even have to be good. And we can have global reach potentially, right? But here's the thing. Are you delivering enough value to actually deserve that? The algorithm is gonna hold us accountable to that. to make sure that we are actually showing up and serving and adding value in a big way. And that's gonna be my final thought for today as I close this thing out. We gotta do for one what we wish we could do for all. Instead of spending so much of our energy trying to find new tactics for growing listenership, for doing all these different things to get the word out there more, we can start to rely on an algorithm. If we're willing to say, I'm gonna do my best for the one person I have listening today, I'm gonna serve them really, really well. I'm gonna show up the best I can. And as I get better at serving that one person, the algorithm ultimately is going to do my work for me, saying, you know what, they're serving one person really well. Let's give them two more. They're serving these people really well. Let's give them more than that as well. When I go back to that podcast, that Good Christian podcast I had, there was a reason it ranked really high. And it wasn't me using like stuffing keywords and stuff like that, although that's ultimately what got people to listen. But my retention rate was through the roof. Everybody listened to every part of every episode and people never dropped off. That's how I grew the podcast. It was actually good content that was put in front of people. Back then you had to do it manually. Now, thankfully, I think we're gonna have this algorithm, this Rises algorithm podcasting that can do it for us. As long as we can really implement these six things well, we can stand out. So again, I encourage you, get out there, serve that one person the best you can, get better and better at your craft as a guest and as a host. And I'm telling you, we're gonna be able to capitalize in the near future in a way that we never thought was possible. Again, my name is Alex Sanfilippo and thank you so much for spending this time with me today. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com forward slash episodes. Thank you so much for listening.