When an organisation starts thinking about making a podcast, it often lands in the marketing or communications pile.
That does makes sense and there’s nothing wrong with that! Podcasts can help you reach new audiences, raise awareness, share expertise and give you plenty of content to use elsewhere.
After producing more than 60 podcast projects, we’ve seen first-hand that podcasting for organisations can end up doing all sorts of useful things that weren’t written into the marketing plan. As one of our clients put it:
“Our podcast has created mad ripple effects that we wouldn’t get with anything else!”
We love that.
Because the podcast is rarely just the podcast.
A Podcast Can Do An Actual Job
Some of the most useful podcasts we’ve worked on haven’t just been something an organisation publishes, they’ve become something the organisation uses.
One client told us their podcast had become their most visited HR initiative. Another uses theirs to communicate with colleagues across their business:
“Our podcast is a way of speaking to every colleague no matter what area they’re in. We’ve got a large, dispersed network so it’s super effective to get our message to teams across our business.”
We’ve also had a client tell us their podcast helped more people get the information they needed without somebody on the team having to pick up the phone and answer the same queries.
That’s so much more useful than filling a gap in the content calendar. Think about the information and knowledge your organisation already spends time sharing. Some of it could work much harder as a podcast.
A podcast gives you another way to get that knowledge out of somebody’s head, meeting or PowerPoint and into something people can actually use.
The People Making The Podcast Get Something Out Of It Too
We talk a lot about podcast audiences and apsoluley fair-dos, you do need somebody to listen to the thing.
What we’ve seen through our work at MIC is how much can happen on the other side of the microphone too. We’ve trained people who have gone on to become podcast editors, producers, presenters and contributors. We’ve seen people grow in confidence through interviewing, presenting and telling their own stories.
One organisation told us:
“It’s built the confidence of the women who’ve been on our podcast, they’ve never had their voice or stories heard this way before, especially as some of them are vulnerable or neurodiverse.”
Another participant went from being involved in a podcast to showing other women in her group how they could get involved too.
That’s one of the reasons we think organisations should look at the people involved in making a podcast when they’re assessing its impact. New skills, confidence, creativity and giving somebody the opportunity to have their voice heard might not appear on your podcast hosting dashboard.
But they still count – loads.
Your Podcast Can Working After You’ve Published It
A social post disappears down a feed in seconds, a useful podcast episode has a much longer life.
We’ve had clients create podcasts that they can continue to send to families, supporters, colleagues and people using their services. One told us:
“Our podcast gets our information out to the families we work with in an accessible way, so they can listen when they want and share it with others who will find it useful too.”
Another compared their podcast with running an in-person event:
“We’ve saved money by getting our message out this way, rather than an in-person event. It also means this can be heard by more people, for a longer period of time.”
This is worth thinking about before you publish. Don’t let a useful episode have its big launch day and then just linger on your podcast feed.
Link to it from relevant pages on your website, send it to people who would find it useful, give the link to colleagues who regularly speak to the audience it was made for, bring it back when the subject becomes relevant again.
If you’ve put the graft into making something good, give it a chance to keep doing its job.
Podcasting Is More Than Marketing
None of this means marketing isn’t important. Of course you want people to find and listen to the podcast you’ve put all that graft into making.
What we’ve seen from working on more than 60 podcast projects is that podcasting for organisations can have value that stretches much further than marketing.
The podcast is rarely just the podcast!
Thinking about starting a podcast?
That’s what we do. At MIC media, we help social-impact organisations and value-led good eggs make cracking, purposeful podcasts without the faff. Whether you need full production, training, or consultancy, we keep things simple, supportive and totally doable.
Fancy a chat about your idea?
