Internal podcasts are becoming increasingly popular as organizations desire to stay connected with their employees. Their usefulness has ramped up as working remotely has become increasingly common. Let’s take a look at internal podcasts and why starting one might be the best thing you’ve ever done for your company!
What are internal podcasts?
While a normal podcast is intended to be consumed by any member of the general public, an internal podcast is only to be listened to by a specific group of people: employees in your company. An internal podcast is private and will provide its listeners with important information relevant to the organization.
Why should I start an internal podcast?
As we’ve already alluded to, internal podcasts are a fantastic way to give messages to your employees and build a sense of community and pride. Think of these podcasts as being a replacement for memos and long emails that pertain to the company’s well-being or “state of the union.” If you have a large amount of information to relay, a podcast makes it much more easier to be absorbed! Who wants to read a long bulletin? It’s much more enjoyable to receive messages in audio form and inject your own personality.
What do I talk about?
Remember that the organization you are talking about plays an important role in its members lives. These listeners will want to know if there are any changes to the organization that will affect how they perform their role within it. Employees might want to know about upcoming company events, the progression of projects, new staff members, and accomplishments of their co-workers.
Another useful way to deploy internal podcasts is for training and development. Even since before the pandemic, some employees could often travel away from the office and be unable to easily stay up-to-date on new products or services. Sure, they could read a long document about the new industry-changing algorithm your company just invested, but hearing someone speak passionately about it can help the key points stick.
Listeners probably don’t want to hear about what you had for breakfast, that raise you just got, or your upcoming vacation to Curaçao. An internal podcast is definitely not the place to stroke your ego! This is an easy way to cause listener numbers to dwindle as the podcast offers little value to them.
Who can start one?
As long as you’re a part of the organization, you can start one! Of course, you will need to get permission from those in charge, but anyone in the company is capable of hosting. This includes the CEO to the front-line workers and everyone in between! It can be especially insightful if the podcast hosted by two people who play substantially different roles in the organization. If you’ve got an interest in podcasting, take the initiative and start one for your organization!
Where can internal podcasts be hosted?
Since the inception of podcasting, it has generally been used as a medium to broadcast to the public. Therefore, most of hosting platforms available were designed with the intention of having the podcasts available to anyone.
With the growing popularity of internal podcasts, an increasing number of hosting options have become available. Another driving force has been the use of private podcasts that deliver members-only bonus content.
There is a key differentiator in a traditional podcast host vs. one specialized for internal podcasting. This crucial point is ensuring that the content is secure and available only to the individuals intended to hear it. This adds some complexity to the situation, so finding a host which makes the experience simple is very important!
One common method for providing access to an internal podcast is how Podbean does things, where users must login on a specific app or website. It can even be integrated with a companies’ existing infrastructure to make accessing the podcasts a breeze. Storyboard works in a similar way.
Another option is Castos’ method. Here, each user gets their own unique RSS feed to subscribe to in any podcast app of their choosing. This is beneficial since it can more easily fit into the user’s lifestyle and the app they already use for enjoying podcasts.
Interested in learning more about starting an internal podcast for your organization? Chat with East Coast Studio today!