In the latest episode of The Internal Comms Podcast we catch up with Brian Landau, podcasting guru and expert on all things audio content creation and distribution, to understand the secret recipe for a successful internal comms podcast.
We’ve pulled together Brian’s stand out advice into four top tips, keep reading to set your internal or employee podcast on the road to success.
#1 Make it measurable
If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Don’t dive straight into brainstorming podcast subjects and formats, you’ll need to develop a business case first. Make sure you answer the following questions from the word go; how are you defining success for the project? What are the outcomes that you’re trying to drive? How are you going to measure these outcomes? Keep these in mind through every step of your podcast development process.
“If you create a beautiful podcast that no one listened to and you couldn’t measure ROI, did a beautiful podcast actually get created?”
#2 Make it timely and regular
Everyone wants to know: how often should you be publishing your podcast? But the most important thing to consider is what is sustainable for your team or organisation. A lot of work goes into the production and distribution of each episode, including marketing newsletters, supporting blogs, social sharing etc. so allow yourself room to make sure each episode reaches its full potential. It’s okay if it’s only once a month, but commit to the first Wednesday of the month, for example, and let your audience know the who, what, where, why of that podcast so they can quickly learn what to expect in each episode.
“And please, please, please, please, please. Publish this podcast at a repeatable cadence.”
#3 Find your identity, find your host
A challenge many companies stumble across is finding the voice of the podcast – a good host will carry the whole show. Brian believes this can be solved by making sure the podcast has a clear and ownable identity. For example, if you set out to create a regional internal podcast and you call it a show, you’ll get the managerial and employee buy-in because they’ll have ownership over the execution. It will feel real and not just another communications motion that they’re being nagged about.
“Don’t call it audio. Call it a podcast, call it a show, give it a special name, identify a music bed, create original cover art. Do all of these things for an internal podcast.”
#4 Elevate existing talent
You, the head of internal communications at your firm, don’t need to be the content creator. A podcast is a unique opportunity to elevate voices from within your company – they are the subject matter experts that will bring something unique to the show. This is a chance to empower the storytellers amongst you. Feel confident to dig for talent and ask around to uncover people’s passions and knowledge. Internal communicators can take on the role of moderators of the content, ultimately at the controls of what gets published, but take the pressure off yourself or your team to write all the copy.
“This is a really cool and potentially powerful way to elevate the voices across your company. And then with respect to what type of formats, once you’ve empowered your colleagues, your managers, your employees to be at the wheel, they will determine the format for themselves.”
To listen to the whole podcast and hear about some of Brian’s thoughts on the future of podcasting click here.
If you have any thoughts or comments on this episode, please share them using the hashtag #TheICPodcast. And make sure you’re following us @abthinks.
