Exclusive podcast announced from TikTok star Addison Rae
I’ve been saying for a while now that the growing popularity of podcasting is something that should be very, very exciting for content creators as the medium is providing a mainstream, credible platform that looks like it will provide a sustainable audio-opportunity with long-term potential that makes it very viable for people with audiences to be able to monetise their audio offerings.
And, whilst I have been saying this, the examples of people who have done recent headline deals so far might have seemed a bit farfetched to the ‘ordinary’ influencer…
Yes, Spotify might have paid $100,000,000 to Joe Rogan — but it’s JOE ROGAN, one of the OG’s of the pod space.
Then, there’s Kim Kardashian, but again, it’s Kim — she’s sort of a big deal.
Recently, there was also the announcement about Michelle Obama becoming an exclusive Spotify podcaster too, but as the best-loved First Lady of the free world, there’s no surprise that someone with that level of profile attracts profitable attention.
But this week, a deal have been penned that is a prime example of ‘build an audience and the platforms will come’ as Addison Rae, the hugely popular TikTok star, has agreed an exclusive deal with podcast studio Parcast, which is owned by Spotify, meaning this new show will be a Spotify exclusive.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Addison — who is listed on Wikipedia as ‘an American social media personality and dancer who has accumulated more than 3 billion likes and 52 million followers on TikTok, ranking as the second most-followed individual on the platform — has a seriously substantial following, but this latest exclusive agreement for the streaming giant does prove the point that building a large audience of engaged followers on one platform can have value across multiple formats.
Rae only joined TikTok in July 2019, so her giant following has only been a year in the making!
Addison’s social media footprint extends to 23 million followers on Instagram, 2.8 million YouTube subscribers and 2.9 million Twitter followers, as well as the 52 million fans on TikTok, so she’s definitely going to be able to drive substantial traffic to her new show and you’ve got to assume that even if only 10% of her existing following engage with the audio-content created its going to be worth it for all parties.
From a podcasters point of view it is going to be really interesting to see how this all plays out:
- How much of an existing huge audience can be mobilised to engage in a new format of content?
- How good will the content be from a video-based influencer as they transition to audio?
- Will this bring a new type of advertiser to the podcast marketing space?
- Will their be a gold-rush to secure influencers to join exclusively to certain podcasting platforms?
- Will attracting a totally new demographic of potential listeners increase the awareness of podcasting overall?
Whether you’re a fan of these sorts of deals or not (I know a lot of the podcast purists will be outraged as per usual!) it is definitely going to be interesting to see what happens next! For me personally, I genuinely believe that ‘all boats rise in a high tide’, so anything that puts podcasting on the news agenda and gets new ears to the medium, I am all for it!
