The Instagram Stories - Social Media News
Oct 8, 2026 · 17 min · 13 segments
In this special episode, recorded live at the Podcast Movement conference, I sit down with podcast marketing strategist Arielle Nissenblatt to discuss essential strategies for growing your show's…
Arielle NissenblattGuest
Daniel HillHost
So my, my friend and collaborator Lauren Passell and I have been doing lots of fun experiments in the podcast world for a long time together.

In 2023, we decided that we wanted to do something called Adopt a Listener Month, where we, we've always been on a quest to get more people to listen to podcasts.

Because the best way to grow a podcast is to borrow audience from existing podcasts, but we still also need to be looking for net new listeners.

People that are just new to the podcast listening or consumption world in general.

So in 2023 we said, "What would it look like to do Adopt a Listener Month?" So we went to the streets of New York City, we went to Washington Square Park, and we held signs that said, "Come talk to us about podcasts." And we just beckoned people over and had conversations and recorded it, and then made a bunch of videos about the experience.

And what we found at that time was that people still didn't really know how to define podcasts.

But then it was even more amorphous, and people didn't know where to find podcasts.

It ended up being a day where we basically did PR for the concept of podcasts, and we talked a lot with people about if they listen to podcasts, where they listen to podcasts.

Again, this year, in February of 2026, we went to Union Square and again back to Washington Square Park, had more conversations like this, but we were a bit more prepared.

Those videos are all available to, uh, watch, and we presented them at On Air Fest, a conference in February in Brooklyn.

So this was, yeah, this was the first time that Lauren and I presented together there on this specific topic.

And there also, what we did was on the streets we asked people, "What is a podcast?" And at On Air Fest we asked people, "What is a podcast?" And then we sort of put those videos next to each other.

So my, my friend and collaborator Lauren Passell and I have been doing lots of fun experiments in the podcast world for a long time together.

In 2023, we decided that we wanted to do something called Adopt a Listener Month, where we, we've always been on a quest to get more people to listen to podcasts.

Because the best way to grow a podcast is to borrow audience from existing podcasts, but we still also need to be looking for net new listeners.

People that are just new to the podcast listening or consumption world in general.

So in 2023 we said, "What would it look like to do Adopt a Listener Month?" So we went to the streets of New York City, we went to Washington Square Park, and we held signs that said, "Come talk to us about podcasts." And we just beckoned people over and had conversations and recorded it, and then made a bunch of videos about the experience.

And what we found at that time was that people still didn't really know how to define podcasts.

But then it was even more amorphous, and people didn't know where to find podcasts.

It ended up being a day where we basically did PR for the concept of podcasts, and we talked a lot with people about if they listen to podcasts, where they listen to podcasts.

Again, this year, in February of 2026, we went to Union Square and again back to Washington Square Park, had more conversations like this, but we were a bit more prepared.

Those videos are all available to, uh, watch, and we presented them at On Air Fest, a conference in February in Brooklyn.

So this was, yeah, this was the first time that Lauren and I presented together there on this specific topic.

And there also, what we did was on the streets we asked people, "What is a podcast?" And at On Air Fest we asked people, "What is a podcast?" And then we sort of put those videos next to each other.
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