Interactive podcasts come to Spotify with podcast Q&A and Polls
Image credit: Spotify
Creators can now add a podcast question to their episodes, bringing a personal touch to Spotify podcasts.
Spotify has made it clear it’s keen to look at ways to build communities on the platform, including making podcasts more interactive. Q&A and Polls are one way for podcast creators to interact with their listeners.
After experimenting with the format, now all Spotify listeners can answer polls and Q&A sessions. Questions can be answered by creators in subsequent episodes, creating a discussion around the series that’s contained within Spotify rather than on social media.
If you’re an Anchor creator, you can post questions and make a podcast poll yourself. Find out more on that here, along with some good examples of a podcast question to ask.
The feature brings the podcast experience closer to that of a radio phone-in.
In a blog post, Spotify said: “We believe the future of podcasting is interactive. For too long, podcasting has been hindered by one-directional technology and a lack of format innovation. By building interactive functionality directly into our creation platform, Anchor, we’re able to break this mould and power more unique uses for audio.”
Where are podcast Q&A and polls on Spotify?
Podcast listeners can find questions posted by the creator within the Spotify app at the bottom of the podcast episode, and answer in-app. Answers to a Q&A are sent to the creator privately, whereas if a poll has been created the answers will be public for everyone to see the answers.
The podcaster can pick responses to pin to the question, showing which Spotify user replied.
Q&A and polls are a great method to reel listeners back in for the next episode to hear the creator’s reaction to their responses. If listeners respond positively, perhaps the format will spread out into the music side of Spotify in the near future.
Are you a musician or producer? Ever thought about releasing your music on Spotify?