Podcasting: How to get started with podcasting in your organisation
In our journey into organisational podcasting, we are going to be looking at the history of podcasting, where podcasting is now, and where it might be going in the future.
The potential audience for this blog series is not just organisational communicators looking to extend their organisation’s communication reach, it’s also communicators working for SMEs, micro-businesses, and solo consultants.
We’ll also have a look at video podcasting, or ‘vidcasting’ as many call it, but we won’t focus on it as much as we will focus on audio podcasting.
We’ll also read some case studies and I’m very excited to announce that we will also be listening to some leading lights of YouTube talking about what makes a vidcast successful. The lessons learned from these leading lights applies equally to podcasting.
We’ll talk about what some leading lights of the business podcast world think about podcasting and how to make best use of the very unique nature of the medium.
There’s plenty of opinions from experts about how to best manage your podcasts—the experts don’t always agree on everything, which makes the listening more interesting!
Does that sound good to you? It certainly does to me!
Okay, let’s get started… first stop on our journey is to consider what podcasting is and where it came from, because without knowing the history of podcasting you are more likely to try and wrestle with problems that were solved twenty years ago.
Let’s go!
What is podcasting?
Originally defined as an audio file that was delivered to you automatically via really simple syndication (aka ‘RSS’), the term “podcasting” has now come to embody many different facets of audio on the web.
A quick way of explaining them these days is to call them mini radio shows that you can listen to when and where you choose—be that at your computer during lunch, on the commute to work or walking your dog. You could be folding the laundry, painting the walls, or taking a road trip.
The content of that audio media varies considerably.
Quite often video is also bundled into the “podcast” category. Although this report doesn’t go into detail about how to produce video for podcasts, or vidcasts as they’re also known, I’ve included a couple of case studies to illustrate how some organisations are adding this to the mix.
The early adopters of this new information distribution channel called podcasting used it predominantly as their own music radio station; indeed, you could call podcasting ‘radio with a rewind button’. But once the costs of production (almost zero) became known to businesses and consultants it was only a matter of time before all sorts of material became available by RSS subscription.
Today you can subscribe to:
- University lectures
- Comedy shows
- Music shows ((focusing on each and every type of music—whatever your taste, you can find a specialist who equally shares your passion)
- (focusing on each and every type of music—whatever your taste, you can find a specialist who equally shares your passion)
- Industry information
- Interest groups ((true crime is a massively popular sub-genre of ‘crime’ in the podcast world, as an example)
For example, the Business Communication industry has many podcasts, most notably:
For Immediate Release. Seasoned PR and Business Communication pros Shel Holtz (California) and Neville Hobson (England) with a podcast that stretches back to the very early days of social media and the birth of podcasting. Discussions range from communication fundamentals to leading edge developments and news. Essential listening for communicators.
Recipe for SEO Success
One of the legendary Kate Toon’s digital suite of services. The ‘Recipe for SEO Success’ course is both reassuringly expensive and over-subscribed twice a year. With SEO generating over 1000% a search return compared to social media, it is the wise communicator that pays attention to what Kate says on her various outlets.
Kate Toon also runs the fabulous Clever Copywriting School, and I am proud to be an alumni of both the Recipe course and the copywriting school.
Talked About Marketing, the podcast run by ‘Mr Podcast’ Steve Davis and his business partner David Olney, with editing by Tim Whiffen.
The AI Train, where your hosts, the crafty Content Strategist and Creative Copywriter Tim King, alongside the sharp-witted ChatGPT Trainer and Copywriter Leanne Shelton, stoke the boilers of insight and hurl coal into the fiery furnace of discourse on the wild, untamed frontier of Artificial Intelligence. Yes, they wrote that. Good, isn’t it?!
Inside PR goes deep on public relations; Joe Thornley, Martin Waxman and Gini Dietrich cover a broad range of PR issues. Like most of the podcasts I’ve mentioned so far, ‘Inside PR’ has a long and respected history. All are senior communicators who take their expertise and shape it so that the new communicator can understand and make use of.
Six Pixels of Separation, online marketing revelations, and thought leadership on some of the world’s biggest issues, from Montreal’s Mitch Joel and guests. Mitch has been steering the conversation for nearly twenty years. He is one of the pioneers of podcasting and has been involved since its birth
Marketing Over Coffee with John Wall and Christopher S. Penn. Again, two gentlemen who were at the forefront of podcasting all those decades ago.
And, ahem, there’s my podcast and vidcast, ‘Better Communication Results’, both of which started in the beginning days of podcasting and video. In fact, I was the first and, for a while, the only business podcaster and business vidcaster in Australia.
While the original Better Communication Results podcast and vidcast have been lost to time, there is the resurrection of the podcast.
But let’s get back on track. Anything that can be recorded and distributed as a digital audio file can be podcasted (remembering that the podcast isn’t the audio file itself, but how it’s delivered and distributed, which is via RSS).
When did podcasting begin?
Podcasting, a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcasting”, is a popular method for distributing digital audio content over the internet. It allows individuals or organisations to create and share their own audio shows, which can be accessed by listeners on various devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers.
The beginning of podcasting can be traced back to the early 2000s, when former MTV video jockey Adam Curry and software developer Dave Winer were early adopters of what they called “audio blogging”. This involved uploading audio files onto a website or blog, which required listeners to manually download them in order to listen. I think I was the first podcaster, however, because in 1996 I used to record then publish a daily news service mp3 (maximum five minutes long) on topics of interest for small businesses, which they could download and listen to at their convenience, or play on our NewsCorp-owned website.
I started doing this on a whim and didn’t see anyone else doing it, so it was a differentiator for the visitors to one of Rupert Murdoch’s web businesses in London.
However, with the release of Apple’s iPod in 2001 and the subsequent rise of portable digital media players, the potential for on-the-go audio consumption began to emerge.
In 2003, Curry and Winer collaborated to develop a new method for distributing audio content that would automatically download new episodes onto portable devices. This led to the creation of RSS (Really Simple Syndication = a standardized system for the distribution of content from an online publisher that others can subscribe to) feed enclosures, which allowed users to subscribe to and receive updates from their favourite podcasts through an automated process. This development marked the true beginnings of podcasting as we know it today.
The term “podcast” was first coined by journalist Ben Hammersley in an article for The Guardian newspaper in 2004, and since then has become a widely recognised term for this form of digital audio content distribution. That same year, former MTV video jockey and radio host Christopher Lydon launched the first podcast radio show, “Radio Open Source”. This groundbreaking move paved the way for other radio stations and broadcasters to embrace podcasting as a new platform for content dissemination.
Podcasting continued to gain popularity in the mid-2000s with the rise of platforms such as iTunes, which made it easier for listeners to discover and subscribe to podcasts. In 2005, Apple introduced the first version of iTunes with built-in support for podcasts, and just a year later millions of people were using the platform to download and listen to their favourite shows.
One key factor in podcasting’s early success was its accessibility and low barrier to entry. With relatively simple equipment and software, anyone could create and publish their own audio content without needing a radio station or broadcasting license. This democratisation of audio content creation allowed for a diverse range of voices and topics to be heard, making podcasting a truly democratic medium.
As podcasting continued to grow in popularity, more and more businesses and organisations began to see its potential for marketing and advertising. By 2007, McDonald’s had launched its first branded podcast, “The Feed”, which featured discussions on pop culture and music. This paved the way for other companies to follow suit, utilising podcasting as a platform for brand awareness and reaching new audiences.
Today, podcasting has become a thriving industry with an estimated 700,000 active podcasts and over 29 million episodes available worldwide. It continues to evolve and innovate, with advancements in technology making it easier for creators to produce high-quality audio content and for listeners to access and interact with their favourite shows.
From its humble beginnings as an experimental form of online radio, podcasting has become a powerful medium for storytelling, education, entertainment, and more. It has given a voice to individuals and communities around the world, connecting people through shared interests and passions. And with its continued growth and advancements, the future of podcasting looks bright.
So, it can be said that the beginnings of podcasting have not only shaped its present but also paved the way for its promising future.
For example, we are already seeing a rise in live podcasts and interactive content, as well as increased investment from major media companies such as Spotify and Amazon.
For your marketing team, the question is not ‘should we?’ but ‘when will we?’
Until the next episode, take some communication risks, because you never know what will pay off, and communicate with passion!