Tag: Isabella Way

The Eyes and Ears Behind Spotify’s New Podcast Editorial Submission Form

May 11, 2022

A phone displaying spotify's podcast "editor picks" on front of a blue background

Every day, members of Spotify’s Podcast Editorial team curate selections of their favorite podcasts across genres like true crime and sports, interests like television and music, and impactful topics like gender equity and finding community. And with a constant flow of new podcasts for the team to wade through, there’s always plenty to choose from—which also means it’s possible that the next great podcast could slide through the cracks. 

To help better find, review, and amplify the latest, greatest, and most diverse indie podcasts, the Podcast Editorial team recently opened up an editorial submission form for the U.S. podcasting community. Each applicant will be considered for their editorial features, with the aim of highlighting a wide range of formats (including video podcasts), backgrounds, and experience levels. And if you do get an editorial feature, you’ll have earned a coveted spot as one of Spotify’s featured podcasts across one of our community destinations or in our New Releases section. Read more about how to get your podcast featured on Spotify.

Spotify Head of Editorial Carmen Dukes and Podcast Programming Lead Isabella Way are two of the many individuals who have brought this tool to life, and they help spearhead the team that will be listening to each and every podcast. For the Record asked them to tell us more about the importance and potential impact of the editorial submission form. 

How does this new tool help listeners find even more podcasts to love? 

Carmen: We believe that listening is for everyone, and no matter what you love, there is a podcast for you. By creating this submission tool, we’re hoping to amplify this idea by going beyond genre to find cool stories—on the obscure, the fringe, the funny, the playful, the inspirational, and everything in between. Ultimately, this is about recognizing the full breadth of human storytelling beyond the traditional and well-known podcasts and turning up the volume on more voices.

We know that listeners listen to podcasts for a sense of belonging, to learn, and to be a part of something bigger. We want to help them discover new creators and new shows that match their identity, tastes, and interests by better connecting them more with all the great podcasts that are uploaded to Spotify every day.

Why is it so important to use tools like this to surface these indie creators?

Isabella: Many creators don’t have money for marketing or know someone who knows someone, so we want to use this tool to give voice to all creators and give them a place where they can be featured, celebrated, and grow their audiences. Indie podcasting by nature is a passion project. Creators make their podcasts from their closets with little money, but they want to say something, tell a story, or make someone laugh—or all of the above—so what’s better than helping these creators shine some light on their work? The more listeners and fans, the more these podcasters can make and start to see in exchange for their work.

How does this tool help make podcast discovery easier for the listener? 

Isabella: Podcast discovery is hard, even for our team sometimes, and finding the podcasts that interest you can be a mystery. We want to make this discovery process easier, especially in finding podcasts from communities and voices that you may relate to or want to hear from. It’s easy to hear and know about the big, power-player podcasts, but maybe that’s not your thing. Our goal with the submission form is to help fans find their new favorite podcast and feel like they were in it from the very beginning of the fandom. 

How has Spotify been growing our Podcast Editorial team in order to support this initiative? 

Carmen: Our editorial strategy is called Community Made Here. We seek to cultivate a sense of belonging and community between listeners and creators through our editorial curations. In order to do that, it was important that I build (and continue to build) a team that represents the diversity of our listeners and our creators. My team is amazing and they are so passionate about serving their listeners—this starts with empathy, understanding, and being empowered to share their own fandoms and passions with others. I believe that people care about people not things, and at the core of our work is a relentless focus on connecting humans to humans through shared experiences, shared joy, and shared ambitions.

Why are you personally excited for this new offering? 

Isabella: Being an Asian American who grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, I felt othered and different, and I found that I often did not connect with some mainstream stories—as much as I really wanted to fit in. I really love that podcasting as a storytelling medium carries a low barrier to entry to allow for so many different types of people. 

I’ve been working on getting this out to creators for the last eight months and am really thrilled that we have already received so many submissions. There are millions of podcasts out there, and we want to identify and surface creators doing great work. We will review every submission that comes in to give everyone an equal chance to be heard.

Carmen: Joy sharing is contagious, aspirational, and necessary work. To me, creating a podcast is a mode of joy sharing, and we’re happy to dedicate more space on Spotify to indie creators who subscribe to that idea. This is an opportunity for an indie creator to be recognized for their storytelling and creativity.

Like what you hear? Submit your podcast with the new editorial submission form, then come chat with the U.S. Podcast Editorial team and Anchor creators on the Spotify Podcasts Discord.

Movie and Film Buff? Spotify’s ‘Listen If You Watch’ Page Has the Perfect Podcast for You

January 20, 2022

The third season of the show you’ve been bingeing ends with a sudden cliff-hanger. A movie with many twists and turns comes to a conclusion that leaves you wanting more. There’s nothing else you can watch until you’ve sufficiently processed. It’s time to turn to podcasts. 

“With TV shows and movies, sometimes we finish and we just want to talk to somebody as passionate as we are about it,” said Jessica Diaz-Hurtado, Spotify Podcast Editor, Music and Entertainment. “Podcasts are a great entry point to hear people, specifically pop-culture experts who studied television and film, talk about a piece of media—or maybe you can even hear from the director themselves. Podcasts can give an entirely different point of view.”

Jessica recommends queuing up Spotify’s “Listen If You Watch” page, which she helps curate alongside a team of pop-culture aficionados. Their job? To help fans find the interviews from, insights on, and analysis of their favorite media—and maybe, just maybe, help them find their next favorite podcast, too. 

Where to “listen if you watch”

On Wednesdays, when fans navigate from Spotify Search to the Podcast tile, they’ll see a shelf called “Listen If You Watch.” Each week, the Podcast Editorial team takes a relevant cultural TV or film moment and builds out a set of podcast recommendations that are related to it. 

But if you miss a Wednesday, have no fear—type “Listen If You Watch” into Search to find an even more expansive page curated by Podcast Programming Lead (and self-proclaimed industry aficionado) Isabella Way, complete with refreshed curations every week. Isabella explained how she takes the shelf from the podcast page and builds it out into four distinct sections:

  1. Listen if you watch … – The first shelf is the same as what’s on the homepage of the podcast section—curated episodes about and inspired by the TV show, movie, or genre of the moment. It’s updated every Wednesday, but you can find it here throughout the week. Recent themes have included West Side Story, the Emmys, and Don’t Look Up.
  2. For [GENRE] fans – The second shelf features podcast episode curations around your favorite TV- and film-related themes—think superheroes, true crime, or action. “This is also where we have a chance to tie in our Owned and Exclusive content,” said Isabella. “For example, when we curated for ‘Horror’ fans we were able to feature three Parcast episodes, one of which highlighted haunted houses that they made into fictional stories on The Conjuring.”
  3. made for … [NAME] stans – The third, brand-new shelf has a tagline that reads, “episodes inspired by the celeb of the moment, curated by our resident Gen Zer.” This shelf allows the team to ensure they’re programming content that all our audiences, including Gen Z, are interested in. At the forefront of culture, Gen Zers are passionate about diversity and inclusivity, and having this space allows us to program content that is equally so. The first week of the new shelf, timed to the season two debut of Euphoria, was “made for … daya stans” (aka Zendaya). An upcoming title could include “made for … timmie stans” (that’s Timothee Chalamet). And yes, it’s curated by an actual Gen Z Spotify employee, lowercase and all.
  4. Stay up on all things TV and Film – The final shelf features 8-10 different podcasts around the TV and film industry, and it captures a broader picture instead of a specific topic or theme. This shelf features podcast titles on the show level, rather than by episode, so it paints a more holistic view of the space. It’s updated monthly, which gives you ample time to get deeply invested in a show or host. 

Always in the know

With a film and TV hub to update weekly, the podcast editorial team needs to constantly stay on their toes, ready to feature a new obsession at any moment. The secret? They don’t plan that far in advance. 

Of course there are some events and dates and cultural moments to time curation to—annual award shows and big movie franchise release dates are always top of mind. But the team stays loose and flexible, ready at any minute to jump on a trend like Squid Game. They do this by keeping up on social media, online publications like magazines and newspapers, and podcast newsletters—and of course, they’re listening to podcasts like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR to introduce them to media they haven’t heard of.

It’s also important to the team to find, listen to, and program shows that represent diverse populations. Jessica is a fan of The Bechdel Cast, which features women in TV, film, and music, and Isabella often tunes into Black Men Can’t Jump [In Hollywood], which is a comedic podcast that reviews films with leading actors of color and analyzes them in the context of race and diversity. And the team makes sure to vary the size and scope of the podcasts they feature as well. “When I was curating around Reservation Dogs, I was also trying to pull some more shows by indie podcast creators, especially since I wanted to highlight podcasts that were created by Native Americans who were talking about the show or talking about issues related to the show,” Jessica shared. 

The “Listen If You Watch” page is full of episodes and shows with hot takes, thoughtful reflections, fan theories, and much more. It holds up a topical, relevant audio mirror to the world of TV and film media that surrounds us. What’s more, it’s a great way for you to find an episode or two related to your interests—then be launched into an even larger and more expansive world of podcasts. 

Tune in weekly (or even more often) to hear podcasts curated from—and for—people who are just as obsessed as you. 

This week’s “Listen If You Watch” is: YA Movies. Hear about Twilight, To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, The Hate U Give, Booksmart, and Lady Bird from culture fans and experts.