The Hidden Benefits of Converting Your Podcast into Text
Podcasting Industry Right Now
In 2020 there were 75.9 million U.S. podcast listeners, and by the end of 2021, it is estimated to grow to 82.7 million and 100.1 million by 2024. This trend seems to increase over the years continually.
What exactly are these people listening to?
Edison Research survey found that (p.31), 75% of people who listen to podcasts are there for the educational content whereas 71% for entertainment and 60% for keeping up with the latest trends and topics. This means that people listen with intent and want to interact with the knowledge you want to share. Unlike music, where not everyone wants to know the lyrics, people who listen to podcasts wish to understand your topic better, and what better way than reading what you spoke!
While this is a clear indicator that the podcast industry is a vibrant and thriving community, there are still areas for improvement, such as converting speech to text.
Why convert audio to text? Here are our main reasons why:
Increase Accessibility
According to the World Health Organization, 5% of the world’s population requires rehabilitation to address their ‘disabling’ hearing loss. Those could benefit from reading a transcribed podcast during their rehab sessions and, of course, a text document supporting the podcast makes the content more accessible overall. In addition, if your podcast was based on a video-recorded interview, you can use the converted text as closed captioning to help your viewership on your YouTube or Vimeo channel. If you have foreign audiences watching your show, you already have the text ready to be translated. The ways to make your content accessible are endless!
Helps English Language Students Learn
Podcast episode transcriptions also make your show accessible to non-native speakers. You can have a written version of your podcast so that if for example English is their second language, they can easier look up and understand what you meant in a particular sentence. You can also attract hidden audiences, such as those learning a language who find your content interesting. Since its inception in 1964, the TOEFL test has been taken by over 20 million students. In comparison, IELTS has three million students taking the test every year. Your podcast could be the one thing that helps a student increase their score in the listening and reading sections of the test, all because you converted your speech to text.
A Text Version of Your Podcast Can Improve Your Website Rank
Having blog posts is vital in helping your website improve in the Google ranking algorithm. Have you ever felt lazy or brain-drained to write a blog post because you put so much effort into a podcast? Hit two birds with one stone with converting your podcast into text. This quickly solves the problem of you writing an article from scratch. Your transcribed podcast would be similar in word count, if not longer, than a blog post which would help boost your webpage searchability.
Text That Can Be Repurposed
Love a specific line you mentioned? Want to summarize your podcast before uploading but don’t want to write it out? Converting your audio into text can help you leverage your podcast content into social media posts, paid ads, and summarizing your content when uploading to a repository. Imagine hiring someone to listen to your podcast, trying to nail down that line you wrote, quote it, and make a post about it. You could save cost and time just by using SpeechLive to convert your audio and publish content in half the time it would take!
Transforming Your Content is Within Reach!
While publishing your podcasts as only audio format is great, think of all the possibilities you could do with the written version of your podcast. We’ve only listed some of them, but we’re sure you can be creative just as you are creative with your topics.
Want to see how far your content can go? Try SpeechLive for a limited time.