As workplaces get filled with gen Z after the millennials, leaders must make communication more accessible and relatable with this new generation. And that is why leaders have taken to corporate podcasts as a primary means of engaging with millennials at the workplace.
The popularity of podcasts as a medium is growing primarily because of its storytelling capabilities and ability to create communities around niche topics, making it one of the preferred methods for younger generations to take in the information. But additionally, podcasts also take lesser efforts to produce than a video and are more convenient to listen to. While videos for corporate communications can be more effective, to spend the time and effort it takes to produce videos might be difficult for busy executives.
However, corporate leaders have to remember that employees don’t necessarily want to spend their free time hearing about their company via podcast; which is why they have to make it interesting and provide value to your employees in a unique way.
What kind of podcasts are getting popular?
The types of podcasts gaining traction can be broadly categorized into the following types –
Interviews and conversations with special guests
This use case of podcasts is especially popular. You can invite your leaders, department heads, customers, or industry leaders over to your office for a chat and publish the conversation as a podcast. This informal way to share thoughts is very palatable and works like a charm.
Storytelling
A podcast could be a very good medium to bring in key stakeholders in your organization and let them tell their stories. The stories could be about how a deal was won or how somebody solved an old problem by thinking differently, or maybe about your CSR initiatives.
Educational
Not for formal training, but podcasts could be very useful for informal pieces of training. For example, you can create podcasts related to productivity hacks, language tips, best practices of doing something, etc. These educational podcasts are fun to listen to compared to classroom discussions.
5 things you must know about podcasts
Podcasts should have an identity
Podcasts can have two types of identities –of the host or the topic or both. But every podcast must create an identity that listeners will remember and subscribe to. If you have multiple themes on which you have something to say, create multiple podcast series. Knowing this, kPoint has created a separate podcast place for users to go and browse through the podcasts on various topics.
Create a fanbase
Podcasts should not be a one-off talk. It should be a series of talks published with a fixed frequency. Don’t worry about how you will share the new podcast episodes. Listeners will always subscribe to your podcast if they like the topic. In kPoint, authors can create podcast channels so that not only users subscribe to those channels easily, but podcast authors also get granular analytics of their podcast.
Although it is one way, it doesn’t have to be a monologue
Podcasts must be conversational, period. The conversation could be between 2 co-hosts, interviewer and the interviewee or it could be notional – a conversational presenter speaking to his audience. People don’t listen to boring monologues. As much as the technology, the form of podcasts has also evolved to a high standard in which it has to be attention holding, and in a lighter tone so that people will happily get engaged and press that subscribe button more often than not.
Production quality is more important than you think
You might think a podcast is just audio and it would take lesser effort to produce than a video. It is only partially true. Although you don’t have to work with a camera, lights, background, etc., you still have to put in efforts to make the podcast engaging. The production quality aspects you have to look at are – sound quality, editing, background score, branding, consistency of intro and outro. Here are some tips to produce a great sounding podcast.
People will listen to it passively
According to Podcast insights, only 11% of podcast listeners listen to podcasts while at work. Everybody else listens to podcasts while doing something else like working at home, driving, walking, etc. And naturally, 70% of the users listen to podcasts from their mobile phones. You have to plan your content keeping that in mind. Podcasts will be best received if you keep the language light and keep the length around 30 mins. kPoint fully supports passive listening behavior by enabling its podcasts to play smoothly on mobile devices in the background.
kPoint is ready to roll out your podcasts! Please talk to us to get started.
