“Why would someone need a podcast?” I asked Johann, to which he replied, “Well let’s put one together and see what we can learn”. This is the result of our foray into the world of podcasting in South Africa:
Podcasting is one of the newest content distribution methods enabled by the internet, and has seen phenomenal growth since 2003. While it has been on everyone’s radar for a while, what benefit could an organisation gain from including podcasts in their content strategy now?
The first distinct advantage that podcasting has over content formats, particularly video, is that it is easily accessible while multi-tasking – audiences are listening while commuting or performing other tasks – and are able to appreciate the content at a time of their own choosing. Listeners are now able to create their own radio stations of content that want to listen too.
This is that it a great way to grow your reach into niche audiences, those carefully selected audiences who are interested in your content, and you can tailor the content more selectively to their needs. Growing the audience will also hopefully instil a greater sense of the brand identity for the listeners as they begin to gain trust in your content in this age of fake news.
Producing a podcast can become an effective part of an organisational workflow, allowing for the recording of interviews with experts on a range of topics and the creation of an archival body of knowledge and a resource for future podcasts. Compared to other formats, again to video specifically, podcasting has a much lower barrier to entry in that it’s cheaper to produce and can be published either rapidly or in carefully timed content cycles. That said, it is important to bear in mind that the more time and effort put into the audio package, the more professional the result will be.
A quick sweep of the notable competition in South Africa shows that not many companies have embarked on producing podcasts and these are still early days in which it’s possible to stand out from competitors in the field. A well-thought-out podcast would also transcend regional and continental boundaries and allow your perspectives, as a content producer, to reach a global audience.
See https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/2836291 and https://www.forbes.com/sites/under30network/2016/03/31/6-reasons-why-podcasting-is-the-future-of-storytelling/ for more info on the points above.
The views expressed herein are personal and do not reflect the views of any of my clients or employers.