Rationalizing a business podcast
Posted by Administrator on September 20th, 2005
By Shel Holtz, Holtz Communication + Technology | A Shel of My Former Self
EDITORS’ CHOICE | Tools & Practices: Podcasting
It’s 7:30 a.m. and I’m on a BART train bound for San Francisco from the East Bay. I live in Concord but have an 8:45 a.m. dentist’s appointment in the City. I used to work at First and Market, but since I started working for myself out of my home in the East Bay, I haven’t been motivated enough to find a new dentist closer to home.
In any case, I’m sitting on BART. My laptop is on my lap and my ear buds are in years. A year ago, I would have been spinning through the tunes on my digital media player looking for music that suited me at the moment. This morning, I’m listening to an IBM podcast in which a couple of company experts are speculating about the future integration of technology into the infrastructure of the typical home. It’s a podcast IBM calls “IBM and the Future of…“.
On planes I listen to (among other shows) Hollywood PR Spinfluencer Eric Schwartzman interview publication editors about how best pitch them. I listen to General Motors auto designers talk about the car design process while I walk my dog. Lee Hopkins offers tips for better communication while I’m on the treadmill. In my car, veterinarians from Purina offer advice on how to keep my dog and cat healthy.
Most of the podcasts I listen to, though, are not produced by businesses. They’re from individuals reveling in their hobby.
Podcasting celebrated its first birthday in August, making it one of the newest media technologies - and one of the fastest growing since the introduction of the web. Still, only a handful of businesses have jumped into the podcasting waters. With so few examples to point to - and likely none in your industry - it will no doubt be hard to convince some executives to take the plunge. It may even be hard to convince yourself.
The fact that podcasting’s profile is rising and it sounds like fun is no reason to launch a business podcast (or, for that matter, any other communication tactic). However, your business communication goals and challenges could lead you to explore podcasting’s possibilities.
The characteristics of podcasting offer some insight into the potential for business communication. For example, the subscription model ensures that your show will automatically appear in your listeners’ playlists. I may never think to go check the IBM podcast site to see if a new download is available, but I listen when I see that a new show has arrived.
Time-shifted and detachable
As my commute to the dentist shows, podcasting time-shifts radio-like content so you can listen at your leisure. It also allows you to detach content once imprisoned on your computer so you can take it with you wherever you go. Both are important considerations, since they make it easy for audiences to listen to content while they are doing something else. You can’t read while you drive or walk the dog, but listening is easy.
Because the primary means of obtaining podcasts is through an RSS subscription, you don’t even have to hope that your audience members will remember to come back to your site to grab the next episode. As soon as you upload it, their podcatchers (or Apple’s iTunes software) will retrieve it. That’s exactly how I knew I had a new IBM podcast waiting for me to listen to. As I scrolled through the podcasts waiting for me on my iPod, I noticed it was there. Because I had subscribed, I didn’t have to do a thing to get it.
An alternative medium
Next, think about the overwhelming amounts of text you’re subjected to each and every day. Everybody who sends you an email message, everybody who writes a publication article, and every website author wants you to think their material is more important than anything else. From your perspective, though, it’s just one out of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of text-based messages you get every day. Your audiences feel the same way.
Think, for instance, about an investment analyst. The companies he covers are constantly sending material through which he spends hours and hours sifting. Imagine how much more prominent your company’s information would be if he could absorb it via an engaging 10-minute podcast while driving to work. Not only would he make the time to listen, but your upbeat, informative weekly show would rise above the clutter of all those same-old same-old text-based messages.
Narrowcasting
If you tried to produce a brief show focusing on the interests of your organization’s investors and prospective investors for traditional radio broadcast, you’d be laughed out of a program director’s office. The audience isn’t anywhere near large enough to support the kind of advertising you’d need to draw in order to support the show.
This isn’t an issue with podcasting. A business podcast that draws 100 listeners can be an enormous success, assuming they’re the right 100 listeners. Consider some of the business podcasts already out there, such as one from Oracle aimed at J2EE developers. In the entire world there probably aren’t enough J2EE developers to support a radio broadcast, but for these folks to be able to hear interviews with Oracle developers about developments, bugs, and other issues can only strengthen their bond with the company.
As a podcaster myself, I find myself excited by the narrowcasting concept - and amused at the mainstream media’s inability to grasp it. Mainstream media pundits have predicted the demise of the “independent” podcaster because we just can’t attain the lofty numbers major media outlets can. But podcasting isn’t about getting those big numbers. It’s about getting the right audience - the one that cares most about your organization or can influence most other people about your products, services, or issues. My podcast, which I co-host with Neville Hobson, is about the intersection of the online world and PR/communications. We’ll never draw numbers to match the most popular radio talk show hosts, but we’re routinely surprised and delighted to find that influential professionals and media representatives are listening.
Your audience might be fans of a brand, owners of a product who want to stay in touch regarding issues and updates, partners, consumers, investors, even employees.
And your podcast does not need to be ongoing. The Walt Disney Company produced a limited series of podcasts in celebration of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary.
Barriers to entry
Finally, if you want to give podcasting a try on your organization’s behalf, you don’t have much to lose. The reason we have seen the number of independent podcasts jump from zero a year ago to more than 8,000 today is because it’s relatively inexpensive and simple. You need a place to host your files, a USB microphone, and some audio recording and editing software. (A powerful application for the Mac and Windows is available for free. It’s called Audacity.)
Of course, you can spend more - a lot more, in fact. But you don’t have to. Some very popular podcasts are produced using bare-minimum setups.
Rationalizing your podcast
So let’s review. To justify a podcast, you need…
- A target audience that will have an interest in your content because they can’t get it anywhere else, particularly from mainstream media
- An interesting approach to presenting the content that is entertaining, informative, and consistent with some of the principles of podcasting (e.g., not overproduced, authentic and conversational)
- A desire to offer your content through an alternate medium
- A cheap microphone and some free software
- A place to host your file that has some bandwidth to spare
Of course, once you’ve made the strategic decision to podcast, you should look more deeply into the tactical details. Fortunately, there are a couple books that can help:
- Podcasting: The Do-it-Yourself-Guide, by Todd Cochrane
- Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Podcasting, by Michael Geoghegan and Dan Klass
For a list of business podcasts, be sure to visit The New PR Wiki.
About the author
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, a consulting firm that helps companies apply online technology to their organizational communication strategies. He is the author of four communicaiton-related books, and his new book, “Blogging for Business,” (with co-author Ted Demopoulos) will be released by Dearborn Financial Press in early 2006. He has also authored three manuals on the application of technology to organizational communication. He is a regular on the communication speaking circuit and conducts a series of workshops, including “Writing for the Wired World.” Shel has nearly 25 years of experience in organizational communications: He was director of Corporate Communications for both Allergan and Mattel, and spent several years as a senior consultant and practice leader for two leading human resources consulting firms. He is accredited by the International Association of Business Communicators, and
is the recipient of five IABC international Gold Quill awards for communication excellence. IABC named Shel a Fellow — the association’s highest honor — in 2005. Shel received a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Cal State Northridge in 1976. His company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
{tags: prblogweek, pr, public+relations, business+podcasts}
September 20th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
The beauty of podcasting, or narrowcasting as it can also be accurately and technically described, is that I am connecting only with those who want my content. Don’t want my content? Don’t subscribe. Subscribed and listened but don’t like it? Unsubscribe.
The choice is totally in the user/listener’s control. Which means that those who are left, who remain subscribed, are part of a community that builds over time. As an example, a few comments to Shel and Neville’s podcast led to an invitation to be a regular correspondent. I now contribute an audio report once a week. In turn, I have formed relationships with people who are in Shel & Neville’s community that have enriched me personally — people who I can now call upon, ask questions, discuss issues and enter into conversation with. Additionally, I have pointed people in my community towards Shel and Neville.
There is a lot of media ‘hoo haa’ about podcasting being a one-way interaction, an ego-driven output by someone in love with the sound of their own voice. But as FIR (Shel and Neville’s podcast) has shown, a podcast can become a mechanism for a community to voice its thoughts and opinions. Conversations are time-shifted across several episodes as a comment on one show will garner a response on the next, followed by a further response to that comment on the next, and so on.
Newcomers to the show are drawn into an on-going conversation and by this very conversation are drawn back to listen to the next show to find out what someone said or thought in response. And encouraged to add to the conversation themselves.
But how does this help a business?
“Branding” is the word. If we are to believe Seth Godin and especially Tom Peters, then we are only as good as our brand and our last project. As businesses (either corporate or soho, or indeed anywhere inbetween) we therefore have to embrace yet another distribution channel for our brand.
The difference between this new channel and, say, magazine adverts or corporate newsletters to clients, is that a conversation can take place and therefore, over time, one’s “true colours” emerge. One can hide and obfuscate behind corporate speak; one cannot hide and obfuscate nearly so easily when one is engaged in a prolonged coversation.
One cannot enter into a psychological contract with an Annual Report, but one can enter into a relationship and develop a psychological contract with someone who appears before us at regular intervals and talks to/with us in a human voice, devoid of marketing-speek. And at the end of the day, whether business or individual, it is individuals who make purchasing decisions, and individuals prefer to deal with other individuals that they have a psychological relationship of trust with. How much trust can be built from an Annual Report — especially, for example, the last annual report of Enron before their implosion?
Podcasting will not replace any current marketing or information distribution channels - but as a business you will need to be aware of its presence and, if the market you are aiming for is one that podcasting can reach (which is just about everyone), then you really should consider embracing it. And as Shel points out, the barriers to entry are next to none.
September 21st, 2005 at 8:01 pm
[…] Podcasting will not replace any current marketing or information distribution channels - but as a business you will need to be aware of its presence and, if the market you are aiming for is one that podcasting can reach (which is just about everyone), then you really should consider embracing it. And as Shel points out, the barriers to entry are next to none. […]
September 26th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
Shel
Interesting post - especially the narrowcasting comments.
I was suprised by your characterization of podcasting as time-shifting radio, though. This sounds like a rehash of the lame Tivo analogy that made the rounds when nobody knew what podcasting was.
Podcasting is not time-shifting of radio; that would require that users would be able to record the content of their choice, live, and listen to it at their convenience.
Podcasting lets people subscribe to radio-like audio content, just like you can subscribe to a magazine or a newspaper. This is pretty straightforward - so lets let the Tivo analogy rest in peace….