Podcasters are a talented bunch of people with a lot of interesting information to share, but with more than 550,000 active podcasts now available globally the question is:
How do you grow your audience when listeners are spoiled for choice?
According to Edison Research, when surveyed, 26% of Americans aged 12 and over had listened to a podcast in the previous month. That’s 73 million people. And 64% of the population are familiar with the term ‘podcasting’.
Podcast listeners are more likely to be well educated, have a higher income and be in full time work than the average American. They are also more likely to use social media and smart speakers.
24% of listeners still use a computer to engage and most listeners have done so at home (82%). This presents is a real opportunity to take your podcast beyond an audio only experience.
Transcripts Can Help You Reach Your Goals
Transcription is the converting of spoken word into simple-to-read text. Writing transcripts is the responsibility of a transcriber who trains in a specific field of typing audio into text as accurately as possible.
The transcript itself can be an exact word for word document or an edited version of the original text. Transcribers edit things out like ‘um’ and ‘ah’ that prevent clarity in the script.
Much like having a producer, manager, marketer or any other resource to help your podcast reach its full potential, transcription will help keep you ahead of the game.
What Are the Benefits of Transcribing Podcasts?
Reach and Engage with More People
Google’s algorithm uses text rather than audio to serve up search results to users. Adding a transcript of your podcast to your website allows Google to pick up on your content you’re producing, especially the keywords, and match it back against users search terms.
Having a transcript on your website also allows users to skim the content quickly and decide if they want to listen to the entire podcast, read back if they found a particular section of your podcast interesting, and share useful or funny quotes on their social media pages.
Re-purposing Content
Transcription is a simple way to make your content work harder for you. Write a blog to compliment your podcast, use it for your show notes and add snippets to your social media to promote your show.
Do Your Bit to Make the World More Accessible
Did you know that more than 5% of the population globally has disabling hearing loss? Or that it is estimated that this will grow to one in ten people by 2050? That’s 900 million people! The resulting social and emotional impact is enormous – imagine how frustrating it would be if you couldn’t access the content you need or love.
Transcription allows deaf and hearing-impaired individuals to engage with and learn from your podcasts.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) serves businesses that want to maximize their digital reach. Transcripts can assist in distributing content in surprising ways.
The importance of transcripts becomes apparent when you learn that Google can’t read video or audio data. This is because Google’s algorithm relies on text to understand what each piece of content is about.
Transcripts potentially contain many keywords which summarize your content. Keywords are the bread and butter when driving clicks to your website, so the more relevant keywords the better. This is especially important for podcasts.
Why Not Use Voice Recognition Software?
Voice recognition can turn talk to text incredibly quickly, but the accuracy is not as high as you might like. Accents, multiple speakers, ‘um’ and ‘ah’ and trailing conversations can make it difficult to gain a high level of accuracy without human interaction.
Each audio file that is uploaded to Scribblr is checked by our Quality Assurance team, meaning we can offer 99.9% accuracy. And we can do this for just $1/minute.
Learn more here.
How Do I Learn More?
Elevate your content creation and take your podcasts to the next level by trying Scribblr for free or contact us to find out more about transcription for podcasts.
You can contact us here.
