We’re screened out.
How many more hours of TikTok, YouTube, or NetFlix can we possibly watch?
Your visitors want to get back to their previously busy lives as soon as possible. If you insist on keeping to visuals only, they’re going to leave you far behind – unless you go with them.
How? Audio!
By leveraging the power of audio, you’ll increase their time on your site, drive engagement, and monetize their attention.
The business case
Audio’s promising future is due to screen’s limitations – you can’t watch a video and drive a car or run in the park.
Consumers are demonstrating this already with the exponential growth of smart speakers. More than 163 million units are expected to be sold in 2021, a 21% growth rate.
Sales of true wireless earphones are skyrocketing. Apple has sold more than 100 million AirPods over the past few years, with their sales competitors reaching almost 230 million pairs in 2020.
What are consumers listening to on their new audio media? Podcasts, also known as “talk audio.”
People are listening to more than 43 million episodes of 1,750,000 different podcasts, as of January 2021. Apple alone hosted 1.68 million as of December 2020 (which is more than a 100% increase in a single year).
The sound of profit
And where are you in all of this?
You can generate a completely new revenue stream with audio by offering text to speech, short-form audio, or content enrichment; adding audio commentary; launching a podcast network; and/or adding a topical playlist.
No matter which path you choose, you’ll increase time on site, strengthen visitor engagement, and increase monetization.
In short, giving visitors access to the audio that interests them most is good for your bottom line.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Text-to-speech widgets
With text-to-speech you translate your written content into voice, building a “branded” voice assistant who “speaks” your site’s language to your visitors.
Widgets provided by companies such as Audiodots essentially read articles aloud, allowing readers to move onto other things while still consuming your content.
2. Voice comments
You can also use audio to further increase audience interaction.
Everyone has a microphone – let your readers comment on your articles or podcasts with their own voice.
Voice comments allow users to be authentic, as if they’re having aface-to-face conversation.
And with authenticity comes truth. It is much harder to hide behind voice comments, as some do with text, which dramatically reduces the number of fake users or comments left by bots. So your entire comment feed ends up being more authentic.
Two plugins make this easy – Heyoya and spikepipe.
3. Publish a podcast
Getting on the podcast train is another way to strengthen your connections – both to your readers and the subjects that matter most to them.
More than 20 percent of leading U.S. publishers have already launched one or multiple podcasts. Besides being a great way to connect with your audience, podcasts can be monetized.
Once you’ve launched a podcast, indexing it with Audioburst Creators will increase accessibility, shareability, and the impact on your ad revenue.
4. Enrich your articles with audio
Many sites have added video to enrich their content; the same thing can be done with audio.
By adding the Audioburst embeddable player, you can deliver the audio content that interests your readers most. If you’re focused on sports, using Audioburst allows them to easily access content about their favorite teams; political junkies can hear about the latest events; and car fanatics can listen to reviews of their favorite vehicles.
You can enhance a specific article with a burst – a short audio segment closely related. Instead of just reading “So and so said XYZ,” you can hear it and strengthen the reader’s connection to the content.
For example, here’s what Bret Kinsella says about the state of voice tech.
Audioburst’s search engine can help you find the right burst for you article. Embedded bursts help you as a publisher increase time on your site, while further optimizing your content for SEO.
5. Enrich your pages with fresh audio playlists
An instant way to add audio content to your site is by offering topical playlists. Audioburst makes it easy to access the best talk audio content in the world.
We’ve created 130 topical playlists that are automatically updated 24/7. They span anything from NBA to Christianity and Environmentalism to True Crime.
Offering our playlists makes you an instant player in short-form audio, increasing insights into your audience and capturing their interest with a minimum investment of placing only four lines of code within your site.
Offering Audioburst playlists to your listeners, like Flipboard, Newsbreak, or Sportzbonanza.com, allows you to deliver the information that interests them most, directly to their ear.
Audio can go places video and text just can’t. Make sure your visitors take your audio with them.
And let us know if you’d like to discuss your audio strategy. Audioburst is committed to helping you turn audio content into engagement and revenue. Drop us a line!
