In the modern corporate world, communication is key to ensuring that teams are aligned, informed, and motivated. As companies evolve, so too do their communication tools. One such tool that has gained significant traction in recent years is private corporate podcasting, but how do you launch a corporate podcast and ensure it is secure?
As podcasting popularity continues to rise for personal use, enterprise teams are taking notice and increasingly looking to utilize a private podcast for secure, corporate communications in an effort to better enable their employees, partners, and customers. However, since the vast majority of podcasting software is intended to deliver podcasts for public consumption, many enterprises are having difficulty figuring out how to make use of this compelling medium while meeting strict enterprise media security requirements.
Why Launch a Corporate Podcast?
Launching a private corporate podcast is one of the most effective ways to distribute internal communications, training materials, or important updates to employees in a digestible and accessible format. Unlike traditional email blasts or video meetings, podcasts are easy to consume on-the-go, allowing employees to listen during their commute, while exercising, or whenever they have a few moments to spare.
Here are some major benefits of launching a private corporate podcast:
Convenience and Flexibility: Employees can listen to podcasts at their own pace and convenience, making it a highly flexible medium.
Higher Engagement: Audio content tends to engage listeners more effectively, helping retain information better than text or email communications.
Cost-Efficient: With relatively low production costs compared to video content, corporate podcasts can be produced on a regular basis without breaking the budget.
Personal Connection: Podcasts allow company leaders and teams to communicate in a personal, conversational manner, building stronger connections with employees across different departments or locations.
But before you jump into launching your corporate podcast, it's essential to prioritize security. Private corporate podcasts often contain sensitive information that should be safeguarded from unauthorized access. With this in mind, here’s a detailed guide on how to launch a corporate podcast securely in five steps.
5 Steps to Launching Your Private Podcast Securely
Step 1: Define Your Podcast’s Purpose and Audience
Before launching your private podcast, you need to clearly define the purpose and target audience to maximize the user experience. Is the podcast for internal employee updates, leadership discussions, or perhaps educational content for specific teams? Establishing this early on will guide your content creation strategy and ensure you meet the needs of your listeners.
Questions to Ask:
Who will listen to the podcast? (Employees, partners, stakeholders?)
What topics will the podcast cover?
How often will new episodes be released?
Once you've determined the answers to these questions, you can outline an editorial calendar that aligns with your business goals.
Key Consideration: Incorporating how to launch a corporate podcast properly requires a clear alignment with your organizational objectives and a detailed content plan. Consider having guest hosts from within the company or across industry experts to make your content even more engaging.
Step 2: Deliver Your Corporate Podcast in a Company-Owned App
Many people initially consider getting started with a corporate podcast by distributing their content just like public-facing podcast creators do - through an RSS feed. You can password protect an RSS feed, but that still leaves your podcasts very vulnerable to being shared outside your intended audience. Once a user enters their credentials to access the feed, you no longer have any control over what they do with that content, including who they share it with.
The most critical component to launch a corporate podcast is to choose a host that prioritizes security. You’ll want a platform that offers encryption, access controls, and the ability to restrict podcast access only to approved users. Security protocols like SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) should be in place to protect content during transmission, and there should be options to set up user accounts with role-based access.
Authentication and Permissions
Your podcasting platform should also enable authentication for all users. This might involve password-protected access or even two-factor authentication (2FA) for an extra layer of security. Permissions allow you to control who can listen to which episodes, and they can be useful for targeting content to specific teams or departments.
Securing your hosting platform is one of the most critical aspects when considering how to launch a corporate podcast effectively.
Step 3: Restrict Access to the Corporate Podcast App
Once you have a standalone secure private podcast app, you gain the ability to use the same auth system that your audience already has credentials for to restrict access to the app. Integrating your own authentication provider provides a great shortcut for working with IT to meet security requirements because that provider has already been approved for use to restrict access to the same audience in other areas of the business.
This also lays the groundwork for enabling more sophisticated audience segmentation in the future as your corporate podcast program grows. Because you have access to more data about each of your users through that integrated auth system, you’ll have the ability to restrict access even further within the private podcast app based on attributes like location, department, or seniority.
Encryption and Private Networks
To prevent unauthorized access, use end-to-end encryption for your content delivery. This ensures that even if someone intercepts the data, they won't be able to decode it. Additionally, you may want to restrict access to your podcast via a private network or Virtual Private Network (VPN) to further limit exposure.
Restrict Sharing and Downloading
Another essential step in securing your corporate podcast is restricting sharing and downloading of podcast files. Some platforms offer settings that disable episode downloads, ensuring that only approved employees can stream the content, making it harder for sensitive information to be shared externally.
Next time an employee joins your company or moves on to someplace else, their user identity information will be updated appropriately and instantly in the systems, making sure that your confidential or proprietary information only is shared with those for whom it was intended. Business changes can happen fast and you don’t want anything to go unnoticed.
Step 4: Lock Down the Media Players and Streams
Most of the aspiring corporate and private podcast creators we speak to don’t initially consider player and stream security when defining podcast security requirements. It’s easy to forget, especially with audio podcasts, that your podcast app is chock full of media players that have their own URLs and ultimately provide the window for accessing the media streams themselves. Without security at the player and stream levels, you can’t prevent authorized users from sharing your sensitive corporate podcast content outside of your app.
Look for a corporate podcast solution that has a signed embed system that will secure the players and streams. This system entails generating a series of unique signatures and verifying them across the mobile app server, the streaming platform, and the CDN. By implementing these checkpoints, we can be confident that the only time a player and stream will load and play is when an authorized user requests it from inside the application. By encrypting the content (via DRM, URL tokenization, or other mechanism), authorized users are further prevented from downloading and distributing the content manually.
Step 5: Measure, Optimize, and Monitor
Once your podcast is live, it’s essential to monitor its security and performance continually. This includes both technical security measures and content engagement metrics.
Regular Security Audits
Conduct regular security audits of your hosting platform and distribution methods to ensure your content remains secure. Check for vulnerabilities, ensure encryption protocols are up to date, and review access logs to make sure only authorized users are accessing your podcast.
Track Engagement Metrics
In addition to security, tracking podcast performance metrics such as episode downloads, listener engagement, and feedback can help improve future episodes. Are employees finishing the entire episode or dropping off halfway? Are certain episodes more popular than others? Use this data to refine your content strategy and maintain high levels of engagement.
Solicit Feedback
Your audience will also provide valuable insights. Regularly solicit feedback from listeners to understand what’s working and what’s not. By keeping an ear on the ground, you’ll be able to make necessary adjustments to keep your corporate podcast relevant and engaging for employees.
**Special Consideration for Offline Mode**
One secure podcasting feature that appeals to many content creators is enabling their audience to access content from anywhere, including places like airplanes where an internet connection isn’t available. Many of the security configurations we recommend in this post depend on connecting to the internet to ask various systems whether a user has permission to access the content before allowing it to play. Unfortunately, if a user isn’t connected to the internet when they go to stream an episode, this isn’t an option.
For some organizations, this may mean that offering an offline corporate podcast experience isn’t compatible with their security needs. However, there are ways to mitigate the security risks of offline mode that can be configured. By supporting a broad range of security configurations at each level of media delivery, uStudio offers the most granular level of security and control in the market.
Final Thoughts on Launching and Securing Your Corporate Podcast
Launching a private corporate podcast is a strategic way to keep employees engaged and informed while maintaining a secure communication channel. Whether you’re using it for leadership messages, training, or employee updates, following these steps will ensure that your podcast is not only successful but also secure from unauthorized access.
Ready to get started with corporate podcasting? Request a demo to see uStudio up close.
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