About a year and a half ago, I wrote this blog post about why artists need to create podcasts. My main argument was that these days, one of the coolest ways to differentiate yourself from the crowd and market yourself is through podcasts. Especially if you’re an independent artist who’s just starting his/her career, you want to create content, establish credibility and make connections with people in your area, which podcasts allow you to do.

When I wrote this blog post in October 2017, podcast was an important, but a relatively niche media. In the recent days, we saw a series of important events, that might have started a podcast revolution that carries podcast as a mainstream media. So in this blog post, I would like to provide an update of what has been going on lately and why podcast is more relevant than ever.

During the first week of February, Spotify announced that they are planning spending up to $500 Million to purchase a series of Podcast companies, with the first two starting with Gimlet and Anchor. Both of these companies specialize in original content production, and Spotify does not want to be just a content aggregator anymore. They would like to produce their own original Podcast material, which explains these two acquisitions, which would effectively make them the ‘Netflix of Audio”.

At this point I think this is more than just Spotify’s individual strategy, as Spotify was followed by Pandora (owned by SiriusXM) who started Podcast Genome Project, Google Podcast is already growing rapidly, Apple has been leading the way for Podcast for many years and with the boost of Alexa Amazon is also getting big in the podcasting business.

Furthermore, I think music industry might start converging with podcast to create a bigger ‘audio industry’. This has been in the works for a few years now with the rise of the tech industry, but with the current revenue streams this looks like a more natural fit. With that being said, podcast is no longer just a marketing tool, but it also can be an extra source of revenue for the independent artist with the new model that emerges with Spotify.

Personalization algorithms of Spotify will also take podcasting experience to a new level. Currently, we mostly rely on news, internet blogs or word of mouth to find new podcasts that we might like. I regularly see people on Facebook feed asking each other ‘What are some of your recent podcast recommendations?”. Spotify could use its music suggestion algorithms to suggest fans the potential podcasts they might like. For independent artists like us, this could be a new way of reaching and acquiring new fans as well!

Adva Mobile is a marketing services and technology company for creative artists. Using Adva’s mobile services, you can let your fans learn about your latest creative work, run contests, take surveys, reach out to your superfans and engage with them.

Alper Tuzcu is a Berklee College of Music and Denison University alumni, and a Boston based guitarist, songwriter and producer. His new album ‘Aurora’ was released on October 19, 2018 and his debut eclectic album ‘Between 12 Waters’ featuring 8 different vocalists is available on Spotify. In addition to being a musician, he regularly teaches workshops and masterclasses internationally. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter, and for more information you can visit his website www.alpertuzcu.com