What Gen-Z Listening Habits Mean for Podcasting

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Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at my high school Alma Mater’s career day about what it was like being a Podcast Coach and Content Creator. And while it was an opportunity for me to teach the students, it was also an opportunity for me to learn because Gen Z is quickly entering the workforce. They are the ones who are going to have money soon. They’re going to be the youngest working generation, and I want to understand how they consume content, how they listen to podcasts.

And so I took that opportunity to talk to a group of about 60 or 70 Gen Z’s people currently in high school bout how they listen to podcasts. And honestly, the results were pretty surprising.

So today, I’m going to talk about what I found from my very informal study, and what it means for you dear Podcaster, for how you can leverage their habits to grow and monetize your podcast.

Having a profitable podcast is like having any other profitable business. You need to make money. Sure, but you also need to grow. You need to spend your time wisely, and you need predictability. A couple of sponsors won’t make you a profitable podcaster, but having systems to stay consistent, create steady growth, and generate predictable income will. That’s what you’ll get with this show.

Hi. I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And my podcasts have been profitable from Day 1. I’ll share everything I know with you here on the Profitable Podcaster. 

Okay. So let me talk about what I learned. There are…I had some preconceived notions, right? I mean, I’m an elder millennial and I have been listening to podcasts for a long time. I’ve been listening essentially since some of these students were in diapers or not even born yet, right? If they are, freshmen that were born in like 2010. I’ve been listening to podcasts longer than that. And I’ve been podcasting since they were probably my oldest daughter’s age. 

So, I have some preconceived notions about what podcasts are and how people consume them. And of course, you know, that is, you hear about a show, you look it up in your app, you subscribe to the show, you listen to a few episodes. But what I found was pretty eye-opening. 

So here are again, the informal stats:

1. Every student I spoke to had a smartphone, specifically an iPhone. And most of them have an SE12 or 13 model. Very few had a 14. Very few had some something older than the 12. 

Every student who listened to podcasts which was probably around half used Spotify. Every single person. One mentioned that they also use YouTube but Spotify is the app of choice. And I think I’m gonna editorialize for a minute here. I think that makes sense, right? If this is where people listen to music, it only makes sense that this is also where that generation will listen to podcasts. If they didn’t have a podcast habit already.

2. Outside, this one was the most shocking to me. Outside of the Joe Rogan experience, no one could actually name shows. Just topics and episodes they liked. So I will elaborate on there in a minute, on that in a minute. 

When I asked them to name advertisers that they remembered, HelloFresh came up the most. When I asked them what social network they use the most, TikTok unsurprisingly was the winner, followed by Instagram. And then I asked them if they were scared that TikTok was going away and they were like, “No. We’ll just move to Instagram.” 

And then finally, I also asked them if they watched terrestrial TV that is non streaming television, and only a few answered, yes. And it was almost exclusively for sports. 

And I asked that question because it informs the ethos of on demand content, right? No one is waiting to sit in front of the television at 8:00 PM on Thursday nights anymore to watch FRIENDS. They are getting the content they want when they want it. And sports and award shows like actual physical live events, those are the things you actually have to sit in front of the TV for if you want to, right? Saturday Night Live is live and I watch it Sunday mornings on YouTube. Essentially, they upload all the good clips there. So that kind of informed how they view content is where I was going with that question. 

3. So point number three, let’s dig into this. point number three was especially interesting to me because it means they don’t actually seek out podcasts. They seek out topics. And they let Spotify recommend episodes to them based on topics. This came up time and time again. 

Even with the Joe Rogan experience, they would say, “Oh well, I don’t listen to every episode. I just listen if interviews like an athlete or an MMA fighter.” Right? So that’s a topic you’re interested in MMA more than Joe Rogan’s incredible “hosting abilities” right? They seek topics. 

And again, this came up a bunch of times, right? 

What kind of podcast do you listen to?

True crime. 

Okay. What true crime podcasts do you like? 

Oh, all sorts. 

They would say all sorts. And it took me a little while to figure out that they’re not interested in the podcasts themselves. They’re interested in what they can learn or what entertainment they get from the podcast. So I thought that was super interesting. 

Now, Spotify is ahead of the curve on all of us for this, right? We thought they just announced a new vertical experience. I was trying that in the app. Right? And so it’s just like TikTok. You go to podcasts and there’s a podcast section and then they have a minute preview with the artwork, and you can listen. And then you could swipe up if you’re not interested in that.

And based on what I learned from the Gen Z’s from the high school students, this interface makes so much more sense. We thought they were just ripping off TikTok and maybe they still are. But this is how Gen Z wants their content. 

With traditional podcast apps like Overcast, where you curate your own experience, you have RSS Feeds. I asked them if they knew what RSS was because I asked them:

Hey, what do you think a podcast is? Is YouTube a podcast or is is content on YouTube?

A podcast.

Yeah, sure. Spotify absolutely. 

Do you know what RSS is?

No.

So RSS, I still love it, right? But it’s definitely an experience where you’re curating it yourself. 

Spotify and very soon YouTube both have recommendation engines in place that the younger generation is leveraging. They are not looking for content. They are not looking for content. Just like all of the other apps they’re using, they let the content come to them.

And so what does this mean for us as podcasters? And I’ll say, you should take this with a grain of salt because my sample size is definitely more anecdotal than statistical. But given that Spotify seems to be leaning into this trend, that aligns with my observations, I’ve been thinking about how this affects our approach, the podcaster’s approach to content creation. 

First, episode titles and descriptions have become a lot more important. I’ve been preaching better titles for a long time, and if you are in part of my program, which is called Podcast Mastery, it used to be called the Playbook. Now, it’s called Podcast Mastery. If you’re in that program, you’ll know this is one of the things I look at. If you’ve ever gotten an audit from me, this is one of the things I look at. I’ve been preaching this for a long time but now they are likely a crucial part of how Spotify recommends content to prospective listeners as far as I know, or at least it’s not public. They aren’t transcribing on the backend. Maybe they are now with all these AI tools that are out. Maybe they are leveraging transcripts that are included with podcasts, but we don’t know that for sure. We don’t know that the transcripts exists for sure. We know that a title and a description exist. So those definitely need to become more important. You need to put more thought into how you’re titling and describing your podcast episodes. 

Second, your hook needs to be a lot better. Now, you need to grab the listener’s attention in the first 60 seconds. That’s always been important. That’s been important on YouTube. It’s been important on podcasts, on TikTok. When you only had 60 seconds, it was more important.

But now, since Gen Z listeners will be able to swipe away with the same amount of ease as on TikTok, you really wanna make sure you’re grabbing the attention and holding it tight. 

For my part, I’ve been thinking about how important the pre-roll call to action is. I’m currently working through if that might actually be a detriment on Spotify. it seems in my limited use of the app, like they’re trying to smartly pick an interesting part of the episode to preview, but sometimes they just pick the first 60 seconds. So, it’s still worth that consideration. Maybe instead of a pre-roll right out the gate, you have the cold open first. Cold open, and then intro, and then your ”pre-roll” or early call to action. It’s still something I’m thinking about that I’m thinking through. So, stay tuned. This’ll likely be an experiment in Podcast Mastery where I try a few different ways to leverage Spotify for growth.

Finally, Artwork may become more important. I’m gonna say “may” here. I’m not a hundred percent on this but using the Spotify interface, you’re given a 62nd preview with artwork. So if you’re not already, I recommend you start doing custom artwork for each episode. Yes, you have your regular cover, right? but If Spotify is recommending a bunch of your episodes and it’s just the same cover, that’s not going to grab attention. You wanna have some variation. 

So I already do a blog post style artwork. I’m gonna have my VA create a square style artwork as well. And thankfully, my new podcast host Transistor,  includes that, right? Includes that automatically so does Buzzsprout who currently hosts this show. So, definitely  make more of an effort with your artwork. 

I think the biggest takeaway is that after years of being pretty much the same, right? if we say the first podcast came out in 2002, it’s almost 20 years of being the same. The way we discover and listen to podcasts is changing in a significant way. 

Perhaps, the most significant change in podcasting since the internet connected MP3 player where you didn’t have to download the MP3’s and then load them onto your iPod, you could just download them directly to your mp3.

As podcasters, we definitely need to keep an eye on the trends and habits of the next generation of listeners. They already look much, much different from the first generation. And so this is something I’m gonna keep thinking about and keep digging into.

if you’re interested in what I find and how I am experimenting with it, check out Podcast Master over at [podcastmastery.co]. That’s [podcastmastery.co]. It’s my podcasting program where I help coaches, course creators, and authors build authority, and grow their podcast. And Spotify is an integral part of it. So, you better believe that my experiments in the next few months will focus specifically on Spotify. 

And the last thing I’ll say is don’t sleep on Spotify. I wrote it off for a while cuz they were a closed ecosystem. Ignore it. Just like YouTube, ignore it and you’re at your own peril. 

All right. That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Profitable Podcaster. If you want to check out Podcast Mastery and get a written to be read version of this Episode, check out the show notes over at [profitablepodcaster.fm/213]. That’s [profitablepodcaster.fm/213]. 

Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, I can’t wait to see what you make.