Podcasters Pay to Play: Services Offer Rank Boosts to Top Charts
• Podcasters like Call Her Daddy are using a service called MowPod to buy followers and boost their rankings by paying mobile gamers to interact with their shows.
• MowPod charges $5 per new follower and promises a "significantly elevated position" in podcast charts. 9 of the top 50 US podcasts use this service.
• Boosting follower counts this way allows shows to break into the exclusive top podcast charts, which are stagnant and hard to crack organically.
• Podcasters can essentially buy their way into the top charts this way. But MowPod says 60-80% of gained followers stick around long-term.
• Tactics like MowPod's demonstrate why the podcasting industry is so stagnant, with success concentrated at the top among shows that can afford these marketing tools.