Ranking, iTunes and Subscribers.

A topic to bring out rabid responses. Here’s a clue: Ask yourself how you find new podcasts. Do you search iTunes and read reviews? Do you search a topic area and then listen to shows based upon their titles?

If you do the former, you’ll constantly be asking your listeners for 5 star ratings and reviews because: “That helps others to find this show!” Now I don’t know anyone who actually decides to subscribe or not to a show based upon its ratings and reviews but you would think such a beast existed from the shows I’ve been listening to. To be fair, the people asking for these are the “old” media types who think they still need radio style ratings but that’s a whole other blog post.

It does seem that more subscribers will move up the lists on iTunes and the Apple Podcasts app but subscribers are not related to reviews nor ratings. So perhaps asking for your tribe to spread the word would be a more effective strategy than asking for ratings and reviews.

Being higher up the rankings is again no guarantee of subscribers. I’ve listened to some “highly” ranked podcasts, sometimes more than one episode even when they were making my ears bleed in case I’d missed what “everybody” heard. I didn’t subscribe. I searched further down the list, listening to episodes until I connected with a voice.

This is the point. Asking for ratings and reviews will not get you more subscribers and only subscribers will move up up the Apple Podcast charts. If you are at the top of your category or even the whole world, if a person can’t connect with you, your voice and your show, they won’t subscribe. And this is ok! We are here in the podcasting world to connect with others. We won’t appeal to whole world but we will appeal to the right people!

Takeaways

  • Ask for reviews if you like ~ they make no difference to your downloads.
  • Ask for subscribers.
  • Ask you listeners to spread the word.
  • Remember it you that listeners connect with.
  • Be the best you possible.
  • Not everyone will like you, your voice or your show and that’s ok!