Spotify has worked for years to get podcast creators to embrace uploading not just audio, but video versions of their shows onto its platform. Its campaigning has paid off: More than 170 million people have watched a video podcast on Spotify so far, with the platform seeing an 88% surge in the number of people who choose video podcasts over audio-only. This growing attention on video means Spotify could shape up to be a contender for YouTube when it comes to both viewers watching and creators uploading.
With that in mind, the platform recently announced it’s revamping creator monetization with the new Spotify Partner Program that will launch in January 2025. And, ahead of that launch, Spotify is highlighting some of the creators who have already successfully used video to amp their shows’ growth.
Two of those creators are Jared Bailey and Zach Justice of the Dropouts pop culture comedy podcast.
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They, along with former fellow cohost Indiana Massara, started Dropouts on YouTube in June 2020, and uploaded video versions of the show’s episodes right from the jump. Three years (and over a million subscribers) later, they decided to expand video content to Spotify—and within three months, the platform tells Tubefilter, they saw a 40% surge in audience size.
Justice and Bailey say the change goes deeper than pure ‘number go up’ growth, too. Spotify began letting listeners leave comments on individual podcast episodes back in July, and those direct responses from audience members are key for both hosts.
“The interaction and engagement on Spotify, it just feels more intentional than other platforms,” Bailey said. “On other platforms, you can just kind of stumble across our show and you don’t really know who we are or, like, what we’re doing with the show, but on Spotify I feel like they’re really there to see us, they understand us and the content we put out and they have more meaningful interactions with the show.”
“Engaging with fans on Spotify is a little different,” Justice added. “It feels more intellectual because when they come to Spotify for shows, they have a longer attention span. There’s room for more detailed conversations, they can really share their input, and you can tell they’ve thought about it a lot.”
Ultimately, Justice said, “If I was to talk to a creator and they aren’t using Spotify video, I would go, ‘Why?’ and I’d go, ‘That’s not a good reason,’ because you should be. It only helps brand awareness and to reach more people and for people to stay longer.”
Spotify says it doesn’t have publicly available listener stats for podcasts yet. But, over on Dropouts‘ YouTube channel, Bailey and Justice are bringing in almost 40 million views a month.
As Spotify gears up to drop its revamped creator resources in January, it plans to release more case studies like this one showing how video is boosting podcasters. You can check them all out at the Spotify for Creators hub.
Spotify is a Tubefilter partner.
