Love him or loath him, with a staggering 153 million devoted followers on Twitter/X, few names carry as much weight as Elon Musk when it comes to global influence.
On August 9th, a cascade of messages inundated the notifications of a certain podcast host (or so we assume). The prevailing theme? “Have you seen who mentioned you?!” We're referring to Matt Breen and his creation, The Explorer’s Podcast.
So, what happens when Elon Musk mentions a relatively small podcast in a tweet that gets 18 million impressions, 132k likes and 16k retweets?
We looked at the historical stats we collect for The Explorer’s Podcast to find out. Here’s what we unearthed!
Rephonic is a database of over two million podcasts, providing access to listener estimates, chart rankings, ratings, contact info and lots more.
🏆 Chart rankings shot up
Following the tweet, the show’s rankings increased significantly in both the Apple Podcasts and Spotify charts.
The Explorer’s Podcast shot up from its previous position outside of the top 100 in the US History charts on Apple Podcasts to claim the number one spot, and on Spotify, it reached the top three. The show did well in the overall charts too considering that before the infamous tweet it didn’t rank at all.
Globally we see less of a leap, with the average Spotify ranking only slightly higher than it was a couple of days before the tweet. On Apple Podcasts, however, the show jumped to 47th position on average.
📈 The number of ratings increased sharply
Before the tweet, the number of new ratings for The Explorer’s Podcast had been increasing at a pretty steady rate. Looking at the chart, it isn’t hard to see its impact.
🐦 Twitter/X followers jumped (but less so on Facebook)
Even more evident is the surge in the number of Twitter/X followers. Despite still being a relatively small following, The Explorer’s Podcast account grew significantly.
Note that the graph appears to rise sharply just before July. This is because we have intermittent historical data points, with the two most recent being June 14th and August 14th.
Given that Elon tweeted about the show, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the sharp growth in followers seen on Twitter/X isn’t replicated on Facebook.
👤 Subscribers and followers surged in various podcast apps
We looked at the growth in total subscriber and follower numbers across several channels, including Castbox, Podbean, Podaddict and Player FM. We found that this sharp increase is mainly attributed to an increase in Castbox subscribers.
Note that some of these apps cache their subscriber/follower counts for a while and may not yet reflect the real numbers.
Final thoughts
No one knows how long these chart rankings will stick, or if all these new subscribers will become regular listeners. But for now we can probably safely say that the host of The Explorer’s Podcast isn’t complaining!
Rephonic is a comprehensive podcast database that makes it easy for brands, agencies and podcasters to get featured on the right shows. Search for podcasts by topic and view tons of invaluable data including listener numbers, social reach, chart rankings, contact info and more for over two million shows.
