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Podcasts on Pandora are a newish thing and I saw Max Branstetter and Liron Segev’s shows on there a while ago! Friends, how did you get them on there and why isn’t mine? Those guys are trendsetters and I wanted to catch up. My podcast was already available on all the other channels and could even be listened to via Siri and Alexa.
Recently my Business Storytelling Podcast made it onto Pandora, in addition to Apple, Google, Spotify, etc. The process was more manual than other channels but my show was approved by the Pandora partner program.
For all my podcasts – clients, employers and myself – these last few years, I’ve used Anchor as my hosting, production and distribution platform. Anchor, as mentioned in the article, basically handles all the distribution to the main channels dare I say automagically.
Submitting your podcast to Pandora
To get podcasts on Pandora, I had to submit it for approval. The submission form which can be accessed through here asks questions about the podcast. For example: How many episodes there have been, how many listeners each episode gets, and so on.
Once that’s filled out and submitted you wait. It took a few weeks for me to get approved. Once approved, I did see some episodes get immediate views from Pandora, which is currently tracked in the Other category in the metrics section on the Anchor app. Pandora also offers its own dashboard once you are in. Google Podcast Manager also offers a dashboard. Anchor aggregates certain metrics but doesn’t go as deep as those platform-specific dashboards.
For now, here’s the breakdown of where listeners to my podcast come from per Anchor:
[Tweet “Adding your podcast to Pandora makes sense for distribution and branding.”]
Thirty-seven percent of listeners listen on Apple, 36 percent on Pandora and Google (Other), Anchor – 17 percent (which also gets the credit when people listen to embeds), 5 percent on Spotify and 3 percent on Stitcher.
Podcasts on Pandora – What shows are there?
At latest count, there are fewer than 10,000 podcasts currently on Pandora. You can browse shows by:
- Top Charts
- Categories, like business, comedy, etc.
Spotify also recently rolled out top charts, which may prompt podcasters to promote their Spotify version more in the near future.
Once you hit the top list on Spotify you can call yourself a Top Spotify Podcast. Similar to how No. 1 authors come about.
On Pandora, my podcast is one of under 1,000 total in the business category.
Podcasts on Pandora – How to listen
To add podcasts on Pandora to your playlist, you can’t subscribe like on other podcast channels. You add them to your collection. It’s a bit harder to remember to listen to shows. For example, I used to listen on Apple, then moved to Spotify and currently favor Google Podcasts in the app on my iPhone.
I love Google Podcasts because the user interface is simple, downloads are automatic and I get notifications when there are new episodes.
Read next: What’s the difference between podcast listens and podcast downloads?
On Pandora, it’s not quite that simple, yet. Once you find a podcast you like, you can add it to your collection, which now highlights it for you in your collections area under podcasts.
Podcasts on Pandora don’t show in your music stations nor do episodes play when you are turning on “Shuffle Stations.”
That could be differentiator. I do listen to podcasts most of my workday while working on:
- content marketing strategies
- digital ad campaigns
- social media outreach
- other tasks
Sometimes I switch to Pandora and run that on the shuffle my stations function. Adding my subscribed podcasts podcasts in my collection to that mix seems to be a great solution. Sometimes you’d get music. Sometimes you get a podcast.
Taking that a step further, it would be nice if Pandora adds related and potentially interesting podcasts into the mix. They already do that with music. Subscribe to the Selena Gomez Staton and you’ll no doubt get Taylor Swift and other related artists’ songs from time to time.
Sharing podcasts on Pandora to social media
Sharing podcasts on Pandora to social media, email and other places is easy. Simply go to the podcast episode that you want to share and click the arrow share button. These screenshots are from the IPad app.
Pandora is one of two networks – Spotify being the other – that allows sharing of podcasts with a link included to Instagram Stories.
Podcasts on Pandora Conclusion
Overall, if you have a podcast it’s worth submitting it to Pandora. A few words of caution:
- Make sure you have a few episodes published
- Wait until you have some listenership? What’s the right number? Hard to tell, but judging by how easy it is to a No. 1 author it likely is lower than you might think.
- Make sure you are publishing on a schedule and have content to keep going. For example, I usually have around 10 recorded episodes that are awaiting publishing with 5-15 more recordings set up and scheduled.
There’s definitely an advantage to have your podcast on Pandora from a distribution and branding perspective. If you need help submitting your podcast or starting a podcast feel free to contact me here.
Related: CHECKLIST: How to decide whether or not your company should do podcast
