Opinion from Steve Ahern.The short TikTok shutdown in America has started radio broadcasters and podcasters thinking about the role that social media plays in building their audience.TikTok has become a conduit feeding users to podcasts via its short videos. It is a particularly good platform for channeling young listeners to podcast publishers, according to Edison Research.After TikTok went dark on January 18th, 2025, Edison did some analysis of audience habits between TikTok and podcasts. After assurances from US President Trump, TikTok turned itself back on the next day, but it served to get podcasters thinking about who really owns their audience.Edison’s podcast metrics showed that “20% of the American podcast audience ‘ever listens’ through the short-form video platform. TikTok’s role is more prevalent among younger listeners.”Numbers and podcast discovery are even higher with young demographics. “Thirty percent of podcast listeners in the 13-24 age range engage with TikTok to tune into their shows… users are likely reporting listening to clips rather than full episodes on the platform.”Edison’s Gen Z Podcast Listener Report highlights the platform’s “critical role in how consumers uncover new shows.”“As of 2023, 75% of Gen Z podcast listeners aged 13-24 reported using TikTok. Among them, 80% discovered podcasts through their TikTok feeds, meaning it was the second most popular social media app for podcast discovery after YouTube among this group,” says the research.
It’s a difficult dilemma.No doubt a social media publisher such as TikTok, plus others such as Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and the like, can deliver large numbers of people to your podcast, but who owns those listeners. Are they loyal to you, or are they an audience that is more loyal to TikTok.As Facebook taught web publishers when it arbitrarily changed its algorithms to disadvantage certain content, publishers who depend too much on social media to deliver audiences can quickly come unstuck if priorities change.The same is happening with search. Google used to channel searchers to the original source of articles or information, but now Google’s built in AI engine gobbles up the text from your website and presents it at the top of its own search list, so that searchers who only need a simple answer no longer even need to click through to your site, depriving you of hits.So who really owns your audience?If you have built a radio or podcast audience over the years, listener by listener, be careful of giving that audience away to social media and search businesses. It might be better to encourage them to engage with you via phone calls and texts, or messages directly on your podcast feed, rather than through another publisher’s social media feed.On the other hand, you can’t not be on social platforms, because they will certainly expose your radio station or podcast to new people who have never heard about it. But once you have them, how are you going to build a relationship directly with them? Do you have a capture strategy to get them on your direct mailing list? Once on it, how will you develop a direct conversation with them that doesn’t depend on channeling them through a third party?If a third party owns your audience they are only lending them to you, and can take them back at any time.If you own your audience, like successful podcasters such as Mamma Mia have achieved through chat groups, interaction, IRL events and the inclusion of listener content, then it is harder to lose them through someone else’s actions.This is why broadcasters and podcasters around the world are constantly monitoring and adjusting their social media strategies as new developments emerge in the search and social media arenas.Never stop checking who owns your audience.Steve Ahern is the founding editor of this publication. […]
