People can recommend podcasts without ever following a show on social media

The comparison starts with 1,722 US respondents in Pew’s December 2022 survey. Each had listened to a podcast in the previous 12 months and explicitly said they had recommended a podcast at some point. Within that group, 711 explicitly said they had never followed the social media account of a podcast or its host. After applying the survey weights, the share was 40.6%.^[1][2]

The unweighted share of the same respondents is 41.3%. It describes the sample counts; 40.6% is the weighted estimate used throughout the article. These percentages refer to the same answer pattern. They should not be added together or read as separate audiences.

“Following” here means a social media account, not adding a show to a podcast app. The questions concern ever recommending and ever following. The previous-12-month listening question determines who belongs in the analysis; it does not limit those two experiences to the same year.

Pew’s original report presents separate percentages for recommendation and social following among listeners. Our analysis reads the answers together within the group that reported recommending. It shows how much of that group explicitly reported no social-follow history, without assuming that separate totals identify the same people.^[3]

A recommendation could concern any podcast, and the survey does not identify its recipient or communication channel. Someone who had never followed a podcast account could still have encountered podcast content on social media. The finding therefore gives us a reason to question a follower-based invitation list, not to declare social promotion unnecessary.

For a creator planning podcast promotion, the useful question is where the invitation appears. A post addressed to existing followers is one possible invitation. A short sentence in the episode, its description or an existing listener newsletter can reach people in other parts of the show’s audience. These are options to evaluate, not channels whose effectiveness this study compared.

Start with the episode’s usefulness. Who might have a reason to recommend it to someone else? A listener may recognize a colleague’s problem in a discussion or remember a friend asking about the topic. Those are plausible situations for a brief, not motives we observed in the survey.

Make the proposed action specific enough that someone can decide whether it fits. “Share this podcast” leaves the listener to work out the recipient and the reason. An invitation tied to a particular problem gives them more context. Keep it short enough to say aloud naturally at the end of an episode.

For a business working with a podcast creator, ask what evidence supports a claim about recommendations. A follower count describes a social account. A listener’s report of recommending an episode describes a different action. Neither alone establishes that the recipient listened, became a customer or bought a sponsor’s product.

That distinction can make a partnership discussion more useful. Instead of asking the creator to turn every sign of interest into a reach estimate, agree which action the activity aims to encourage and which observations would help assess it. Keep existing audience and campaign reports intact; explain what each one actually measures.

Copy the following fields into a document before preparing the invitation. No sign-up is needed. The brief is a planning tool: it does not apply the national survey percentage to your own audience.

Episode and purpose: [Name the episode and the specific problem or interest it addresses.] Keep this narrow enough that someone can explain its value in a sentence. Choose a useful starting episode if the whole season is difficult to describe.

Who might benefit: [Describe a person and a situation, rather than a broad demographic group.] The question is not who must become a follower. It is who might have a reason to listen to this particular episode.

Invitation: [Write the sentence that asks a listener to recommend the episode.] Name the relevant situation and leave the listener free to decide whether anyone comes to mind. Do not promise a result the episode cannot deliver.

Destination and access: [Provide the episode link and explain any access requirement.] Check that the destination matches the invitation. If listening needs an account or payment, say so before asking someone to pass it on.

Where listeners will see or hear it: [Choose the existing places in which you can make the invitation.] Consider the episode itself and other channels you already use. State whether the invitation reaches only social followers or is also available elsewhere.

Feedback and next decision: [Name the question you will ask, the period it concerns and what you will do with the answers.] Decide whether you need to improve the explanation, choose a more useful episode or learn who found it relevant. Leave a sales or audience-growth conclusion open unless you have evidence for it.

Read the completed brief as a listener would: is it clear what you are being asked to recommend and why another person might care? If the answer requires an explanation from the team, revise the invitation before expanding its distribution.

Return to the fictional studio in the opening. Its episode explains how a business owner can prepare a clear design brief. The team wants listeners to recommend that resource when someone they know is about to commission creative work. The following completed brief is an example, not a measured campaign.

Episode and purpose: “Writing a design brief.” Help a first-time client organize what they want to communicate before meeting a designer. The invitation concerns this episode, not every service the studio sells.

Who might benefit: A colleague or friend who is preparing to commission a website, visual identity or other design project and is unsure how to explain the assignment.

Invitation: “Know someone preparing to work with a designer? If this episode would help them explain their project, send them the episode link.” The wording gives a listener a reason to consider a recommendation without asking them to follow an account first.

Destination and access: The studio’s public episode page, with the episode title and a clear way to listen. In this fictional example, it is free to access. The team checks the link before including it in the invitation.

Where listeners will encounter it: A short mention near the end of the episode, a sentence in the episode description and the studio’s existing newsletter. The team can also publish a social post, but the invitation is not confined to its social followers.

Feedback and next decision: Ask listeners about this episode over a stated period. Use their replies to learn whether the proposed use was clear and whether anyone reported recommending it. Decide whether to refine the invitation or choose a different episode for the next promotion.

Suppose a listener replies that they sent the link to a colleague starting a project. The team has a specific account of a recommendation. It can ask, optionally, what made the episode useful enough to pass on. It still does not know whether the colleague listened or contacted the studio.

The next meeting now has something more informative than a general argument about follower growth. The team can discuss the episode, the invitation and the reported reason for sharing. It can continue checking its existing social and listening reports, without requiring them to tell the same story.

A historical national result cannot tell the studio how its own listeners behaved. A short, optional feedback form can address a narrower question. The wording below is an illustrative template for a named show and period, not a reproduction of Pew’s questionnaire or a validated survey scale.

First establish the relevant audience: “Between [start date] and [end date], did you listen to any part of [named episode]?” Offer Yes, No, Don’t remember and Prefer not to answer. If the report concerns listeners, explain that it uses respondents who answered Yes.

Then ask: “Between [start date] and [end date], did you recommend [named episode] to anyone?” Use the same response options. A recommendation question should ask about recommending; a click on a share button or a favorable opinion answers a different question.

If social following matters to the decision, ask it separately: “Do you currently follow [named show or host account] on [named social platform]?” Again allow uncertainty and a choice not to answer. This question measures current status for a named account. It deliberately differs from the historical survey’s question about ever following any podcast or host.

An optional follow-up can ask what made the episode worth recommending. Let respondents describe the situation without naming the person they contacted. The team needs useful context, not another person’s contact details.

Where you invite feedback affects whose answers you receive. If the form is offered only through a social account, it may miss the very listeners the team hopes to understand. State where the invitation appeared, the response period and who answered. An optional form describes its respondents; it does not automatically represent the entire audience.

Preserve skipped answers rather than converting them to No. If you report social-follow answers among confirmed recommenders, keep unanswered follow items in that base and label them clearly. Do not compare that result directly with 40.6%: the population, dates and follow question would all differ.

A useful recommendation report names the episode, the invitation and the evidence available. For the fictional studio, a clear entry might read: “Listeners responding to our episode feedback invitation described recommending the design-brief episode. Their replies helped us understand which situations made it useful to pass on.” That statement should be used only if the replies support it.

Add the question wording, dates and number of respondents to any quantitative version. Describe the social-follow evidence separately, with the relevant account and reporting period. A person can recommend more than once, so counts of recommendations and counts of people also need different labels.

The next action should follow the evidence. If respondents misunderstood the topic, clarify the invitation. If they describe a use the team had not anticipated, consider whether the episode page explains it well. If there is little feedback, revisit the invitation and its placement before deciding that nobody recommended the show.

For a business evaluating a creator partnership, this makes room for a more precise question: what would we need to observe before calling the promotion successful? A report of recommending, a new follow and a new customer each need their own evidence. The survey supports examining recommendations beyond follower lists; your own activity determines which further business outcome matters.

We analyzed the released data from Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, Wave 118, fielded December 5–11, 2022 among noninstitutionalized US adults aged 18 and older. The analysis selected respondents who reported listening in the previous 12 months and explicitly answered Yes to ever recommending a podcast. It then counted explicit No answers to ever following a podcast or host’s social media account within that same group.^[1][2]

For the weighted percentage, we divided the sum of the final survey weights for explicit-No respondents by the sum of the weights for all confirmed recommenders, then multiplied by 100. Calculations used the stored weights before display rounding. The unweighted context divides 711 by 1,722. Both displayed percentages are rounded to one decimal.^[5]

An unanswered recommendation item does not establish membership in the recommender group. An unanswered follow item stays in that group’s denominator and is not treated as No. This preserves the distinction between an explicit answer and information the respondent did not provide.

Pew’s weighting accounts for selection and nonresponse. We report a descriptive weighted estimate, without a confidence interval or significance test for this new conditional share. The answers concern reported experiences across podcasts, potentially at different times; they do not establish a campaign effect or a current local-market benchmark.^[4]

The downloads contain the displayed aggregate result and a technical explanation of the calculation. They exclude individual responses, identifiers and survey weights. Obtain the source dataset separately through Pew Research Center’s access process.

Source: Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. The opinions expressed herein, including any implications for policy, are those of the author and not of Pew Research Center.