Transcript:

Erika:
Awesome. Thank you everyone for being here. My name is Erika from uStudio customer success. I'd like to welcome everyone to this week's Let's Get Podding webinar. We're talking about five tips for creating a successful podcast presented by the CEO and founder of Tribal Knowledge Podcasting, Jeremy Shere. This webinar will be recorded and we'll be sending a follow email to all attendees with a recording link. We highly encourage Q&A. You can use the Q&A button there in Zoom on the Zoom window.

We will try to address most of your questions at the end of the webinar. So, you can go ahead and type them in the Q&A box. Please don't post anonymously. We would love to have your names in case we can't get to your today. We can follow up and get you that answer. Use the Q&A box over the chat box for questions, please, to help us distinguish. But like I said earlier, we will absolutely be asking for some feedback as we go along in the chat window as well. So, with that, I'd like to go ahead and give our speaker the floor. Jeremy, you ready?

Jeremy Shere:
Okay. Well, here we go. Hey, everybody. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for attending this webinar. I'm really excited to present it and I think it's going to be fun. We're going to talk all about, as the title on the screen tells you, creating an awesome internal podcast and making it work and getting engagement. We're going to talk about what getting engagement means and why that actually matters. Real quick before I dive into some of the slides here, I want to get a sense of how many of you that are attending already are doing some form of podcasting or how many of you are maybe just kind of thinking about it. So, write in the chat just real quick.

Erika:
All right, James, there, you have one. Rachel.

Jeremy Shere:
Two company podcasts. That's ... okay.

Erika:
Oh yeah. Jamie and Frisco with Ashley. They've got a couple departments going. Wonderful.

Jeremy Shere:
Okay. So, a lot of folks out there are already doing podcasting. So, then there's some of this stuff that you might already be familiar with. Oh, let's see. Offer internal podcast to clients. Okay, very cool. So, there's some of this stuff that you're probably already familiar with, but I think a lot of it bears repeating. So, we'll just dive right in. And the first consideration, and obviously for those of you already doing a podcast, you've already thought through this to one degree or another is why do a podcast in the first place? Why is podcasting or why can podcasting be a valuable tool for internal communications?

And so the question that for anyone on the webinar who is just thinking about it. I think this is a valuable question to ask before leaping into the brave world of podcasting, simply how will doing a podcast improve what you're already doing. You're already doing some forms of internal communications. Why add a podcast? Because like anything it takes a lot of work and it's not easy to do it right. It's easy to do it wrong, but to do podcasting well takes a lot of work. So, why add one in the first place?

Again, whether you have a podcast or not, I'd love to see in the chat a little bit, say just a word or two about why you started a podcast in the first place. What was your answer to that why question? Or if you're just thinking about it, what would be the answer? If you decide to do it. We're getting some good answers here. The energy behind the communication, the sincerity, offering a supplemental medium to distribute information. Popular medium used by various demographics. Okay. Storytelling. Can be a more engaging format. Okay. Very good. So, all good reasons. Some other reasons that I think frequently come up that Erika and I have talked about frequently and that I've talked about with other folks, the convenience of podcasting, especially these days when everyone has been suffering from so-called Zoom fatigue, or just more generally staring at a screen fatigue, the podcast and audio podcast, you can listen.

Podcasts are conversational. You can, if you do it the right way, you can get that kind of authentic, non corporate, a little less button down tone. You can get storytelling that's lively and engaging and so on. And many of you, I think, we're thinking along similar lines. I think some ... by the way, reasons not to do a podcast would be because, well, everyone seems to be doing it or nothing else we're doing is working. Nobody reads their emails, or even that our employees are asking for it, just because employees say they want something doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. I think at the end of the day, a podcast has to serve like any channel, like anything you do in a business, it has to serve a strategic business purpose. And so a pro tip and really this is for folks who probably are not already doing podcasting, but even if you are doing a podcast, this could still be useful.

Just take a look at the totality of your internal communication channels and the types of content, and really determine what is adding the most value. What role does each channel play and how does the podcast fit there? Is the podcast just complimentary? Is it repeating what's already happening or is it doing something that only podcasting can do? And I think that's ultimately where you want to be, especially when it comes to at the end of the year, having to justify and get renewed budget to keep doing the podcast. So, okay. Tip number two, setting goals. Now, again, a question for you guys, and I'd love to see your answers in the chat here. So, if you're doing podcasting or if you're thinking about it, what are your goals for the show and how do you measure the success of the podcast? So, go ahead, chat it up.

Erika:
Team motivation, love that one.

Jeremy Shere:
Right. Raising team motivation. Providing a new format to share information that was less likely to be ignored. That's good.

Erika:
Could be training people on new things. Engaging your employees. Connection, engagement. Yep. There we go.

Jeremy Shere:
Creating connection, engagement, sharing stories.

Erika:
Similar stories using best practices.

Jeremy Shere:
In this case, things related to ... Okay. Now these are all valid reasons. These are all valid goals for the show for podcasting, but I want to suggest that it's worth spending more time, even if you already have some of those goals in place. I think it's worth spending even more time to hone those goals to make them as specific and measurable as possible. So, for example, I think podcasting works best in any situation, but I think especially for internal communications, when you are aligning the goal, the central goal for the podcast, with a main business goal. And so, for example, let's say at your company, corporate has decided, or the C-suite leaders have decided, okay, one of our goals for fiscal year 2022 is we're going to grow market share. We're going to attempt to grow market share of a specific product or service by say 7%.

I'm making this up obviously, but that's a very specific goal. It's something that can be measured. Either you hit that 7% or not. A related goal for the podcast if you are trying, as I'm suggesting, if you're trying to align the goal for the podcast with a specific business goal might look something like this, that the goal for the podcast will be to reinforce sales training on that product or service with a series, say on best practices for selling that product aiming for at least 50% Salesforce consumption. And by that, I mean getting at least 50% of your target audience to regularly listen to the podcast.

That could probably be honed even more. My point really is that the more specific your goal is, and the more aligned with the larger goals of your organization, the better it's going to be, because it's obviously easier to measure the success of something that is measurable. So, saying, creating opportunities for connection and engagement. I think that is a good reason to look at podcasting because podcasting as a medium is good at engagement, is good at connecting people in a conversational way. But then the question is, well, how do you measure that? How do you measure the extent to which the podcast is connecting people and giving them opportunities to engage? And there are answers to that. And we'll get to that a little bit later in the webinar.

Someone is telling me, yes, tell me, please. I'm not sure if that's in response to what I just said or not, but anyway. Now you might look at this goal and say, well, that's so specific. Our podcast is more general. We're not talking to such a specific audience to which I would say, well, maybe you should be, because as we'll get to in a second, when we talk about audience and we're going to talk about audience right now, overall, the point here in this part of the webinar is the more specifically you define your audience the better. So, let's get into this. And I think there are a handful of questions that are worth asking upfront about who your audience is. And of course, by audience here, I mean, I think it's obvious, but I want to make sure the people that you want to listen to this podcast.

Of course you need to ask yourself, well, what does our target audience actually need or want to know, what are they looking for in a podcast or in any communication? What is it that we can provide them with that's actually going to get them to listen, to take the time to listen? And now it's the second part here that I think is actually really important. It's not just, what do they need to know generally, because that can mean literally anything or everything, but really specifically, what does your target audience need to know to achieve what they want to achieve at work that at the end of the year is going to get them that awesome review and get them a bonus, or get them a raise or whatever their goals are, or get them that promotion. What is it that they're looking for in terms of information, knowledge, sharing of best practices that's going to get them there? And how can you provide that in the podcast?

And I think this just goes toward basic human psychology that people will take the time, people will spend time on things that matter to them and that are going to benefit them in some concrete way. They're not going to listen to the podcast just because you put ... they don't care how much work you put into it or how invested you are in the content or that you think it's great. They don't know anything about that and frankly, they don't really care. All they're going to care about just like any internal communication is what is this. Do I actually need to know this? If so, if you're telling me, yes, you need to know, why do I need to know this? And if that's not immediately apparent pretty much as soon as they open that email or read whatever you're sending them, or start to listen to the podcast, then they just won't really engage with it.

They might engage if you tell them they have to, but they won't really engage. So, you have to appeal to people's ... to human nature, which is, I think, in some basic way, kind of self-serving and not that there's anything wrong with that, but people will take time to engage with things that are going to reward them at the end of the day in one way or another. Now these other questions I think are relevant. They kind of all support the first one. How do you know what your audience needs to know? Are you just assuming? Is it something that you kind of heard from third parties or are you hearing this directly from the people you're trying to engage? If it's anything but the latter, then I think you really need to make that happen. Or at the very least talk to their managers. And this is something that's going to keep coming up. Get partner with the managers of the people that you're trying to reach.

Those are the people who have the most contact with your audience day to day, and they're going to have the best knowledge about, well, what is it that my team really needs to know? What are we trying to accomplish? You'll also want to have a strong sense of what else is your audience being bombarded with internally. Emails, videos, internal blog posts, whatever. You want to know what those things are. And again, how can you craft something in podcast form that's really going to stand out. That's going to offer at least as much value and ideally even more value because you are competing against those other channels and other things. The combination of aligning the goal for the podcast with a business goal. And if you combine that with a deep knowledge of your audience, then you're really on the right track, because that's going to drive everything about the podcast, including every little detail, including what you call the podcast, how often you publish, what you talk about on the podcast and even the music that you choose for it. And so on and so forth.

And another what I'm calling pro tip here, the more narrowly you can define your target audience, the better, because it helps with alignment. And it's easier to get information about a more narrowly defined group of people. So, one, I think, common mistake that often happens with internal podcasting is that you try to create a podcast for everybody. So, again, the more narrowly that you can define your audience, the better things are going to go overall. And if it turns out that you have, there are variety of audiences that you need to talk to. Well, that might mean there are different strategies for that. That might mean a variety of podcasts. It might not make sense to have one single podcast that tries to talk to everybody. You might have a variety of shows.

Now, another pro tip here, and I already mentioned this a little bit, partner with management. I think this is really crucial to bring managers, specifically the people who are managing the people that are your audience, bring them in early and often in the podcast planning stages to get them on board and to get their input on what is it that's going to make this podcast be not just a nice to have, but a need to have. And I think that's crucial and at the end of the day, if it's a need to have, then you're going to get way more engagement than you are if it's a nice to have, because ultimately then need is always going to Trump the stuff that's just kind of cool or kind of nice. But bring in those managers, get a sense of going back to the example I put earlier. Let's say there's a specific sales target for 2022.

Well, those managers are going to be consumed with that. They're going to be putting a lot of work into motivating their teams and coaching and all that. How can you make the podcast a tool that can help them achieve their goals? If you can, then it's going to be something that they turn to and are going to make sort of mandatory for their people to listen to, which is good for you too, because you get better listener numbers and so on. We'll return to that. Okay, on to tip four. Now we're talking about producing the podcast, all the nuts and bolts that go into actually creating the content. And it really breaks down into three distinct parts. There's the pre-production. And that really means everything that happens until you are recording such as, choosing topics and guests and then scheduling the interviews, determining the talking points, writing out scripts and questions.

I'm a big advocate for that, by the way. I like to have things written out in script format, not literally what people are going to say in response to your questions, but I'd like to have everything written out for the host of the podcast so that at least there's something there. And then a good host will be able to add lib. But by the way, I'll mention again, choosing the topics and guests. That is something that, again, if you really, if engagement is top of mind, which it should be, then you really need to be partnering with the folks who are going to be coaching and managing your target audience. If they have some say into, well, here are the topics. Here are the five topics this quarter that we're going to be talking about constantly in our weekly team meetings. Okay, that should be a no brainer then.

That's a pretty good clue. Ah, okay. Then those are the things we should be talking about on the podcast. Again, if those are the people you're trying to reach, if that's your audience. That's always better than just guessing, saying, well, it seems kind of like this might be a good topic. Go right to the source and make sure. The next part. And of course, with pre-production, there's more to say about all this stuff where this is, of course, we're kind of breezing through, but we can always talk about it more later in the questions. The next part is actually doing the recording and different kinds of recording. I'm sure some of you maybe have built in office studio. Some of you are doing exclusively remote recording, but this is just a really brief overview of if you're not already familiar with this stuff of what it looks like. This is kind of a typical recording set up here, and you have a few really basic pieces of equipment.

And this is for the in studio recording. As you can see here, you have microphones, of course, these are a particular kind of microphones, whoops, particular kinds of microphones. These are called XLR mics, meaning they're the kind that they plug into an audio interface, which is to the right of the laptop. So, that's where the mics plug in. And those are the kind that need a cord with three little prongs on the end. I couldn't really find a good picture of it, but maybe you know what I'm talking about, see microphones, you need an audio interface that interfaces between the microphones and the computer, and you need a computer of course, and some recording software on the computer to record into. I've put some on the left here. I've put a few names of different brands of mics.

I didn't bother putting the names of Mic cables, because those are kind of all the same. Different brands of Mics, different brands of audio interfaces, different brands of recording software. Personally I don't think it's super important the gear that you use. Nowadays especially you can get really high quality gear at pretty low prices. This setup here minus the computer, the mics, the interface cables, all that stuff really shouldn't cost more than about four, maybe $500. Doesn't have to be very expensive. The more mics that you need, the more it's going to cost. But to my mind, it's really not so much about the gear. Anyone can go out and buy gear. It's everything else, I think, that's a little more important to planning in all that, but moving on, if you're doing remote recording, then it's a different setup.

You can then get away with using what are called USB mics. And here's an image of the famous Blue Yeti mic, which a lot of podcasters like to use. And the difference really is they just plug directly into a computer through a USB cord. You don't need the audio interface. And so these mics tend to be, although not always, they tend to be a little bit cheaper, but the quality's gotten really, really good. You need headphones and then you need a remote recording platform. A lot of people will use Zoom. I don't like to use Zoom personally. I just think the quality is not as good. It's not built for remote recording. I personally use this one here, Riverside FM. It does audio. It does video. Even if you don't record the video, I think it's good to use a platform where you can see who you're talking to. And it's built for remote podcasting. But there are plenty of these platforms.

SquadCast is another one, Zencastr. And the platform actually does matter as opposed to the mics, the headphones, all the other stuff, not as important. The platform, I think, does matter, because that really can make a difference in terms of the audio quality and just the ease of use. Whenever you're recording remotely, it's always trickier. There's just more that can go wrong. And it's just a little bit harder to get the same. You're never going to get the same quality as you do in a studio, but if you know what you're doing, then you can get pretty close. By the way, another tip. So, audio quality really matters. Video quality too, for that matter. But I think there's a school of thought out there that if you're in podcasting, especially if it's internal, we don't have to worry about that so much.

We're not a media company. We don't have to sound like the best podcasts out there. Personally I disagree, because you are competing against all the podcasts out there. Your target audience are going to be listening to podcasts for fun. And if your podcast is way below in terms of the quality, then people just aren't going to take it as seriously. And it won't be as engaging to listen to. And so I think that really matters. It's worth spending some time and money on. I just said the gear doesn't matter as much, but it still matters, of course. And so you don't want to totally cheap out and just get the cheapest possible mic and the cheapest possible stuff. You want to spend enough so that you're getting good quality equipment that's going to last. And by the way, when you're doing remote recording, which that's why I think it's important that everybody has a mic, or at least a headset, not just the host, if you have, the host sounds great.

They have a nice mic like this one, but the guest is just talking into their computer. It's not going to sound that great. Or if you know they are going to be talking into their computer and they just don't have a mic, or you can't get them one, then know that and be prepared in post production, which we'll get to in a second to deal with that. Okay. Now, during the actual interview, now there's so much to say about this part of it. I used to teach at Indiana University in the journalism department and I taught magazine writing. And we would spend weeks and weeks just talking about how to interview people.

And I'm going to spend like 30 seconds on it right now. So, there's lots more to say, but I'll just say this, again, remember that the audience drives everything. The podcast is not about you, you're producing it, but it's not about you. The only thing that matters is, is this going to engage our audience? What do they care about? And so that's going to drive, if you're the hosts of the podcast, that's going to drive your on air personality and your tone and the pace of the podcast.

I think it's a good idea to, if you're doing episodes that are meant to be about 20 minutes long say, you should try to keep interviews to about 20 minutes long, because if you let interviews run and say you record an hour and you're like, we'll just cut it down later to 20 minutes, that's a real pain in the ass. That's a real hassle to do. And it all goes into the preparation. If you've really prepared and done that pre-production work, choosing the topics carefully, determining the talking points, working with the guests beforehand, then you go into the interview, you're ready to go and you can cover everything you need in the desired time. And lastly, I think it's good to avoid long rambling intros, both prerecorded and live when you're recording. I think people just don't care. People will tune in, again, think about your audience.

Are they tuning in to hear you the host sort of ramble on about whatever, or are they tuning in to actually get to the content that the title promises? I think it's the latter. And so you just want to get right to it, unless you have a really good reason to do a longer intro, but there needs to be again, a strategic engagement business reason for that. And then finally, we get to post production and here's where you are doing the editing. Leveling working with the audio to make it sound as good as possible. This stuff is important. And there are some really good tools you can use. Any editing software will do. And what you're mainly trying to do here. Again, if you've done your legwork and done the prep, then the editing doesn't have to be a super heavy lift. You want to take out enough of the filler words.

The uhms, the ahs, all that stuff so that the conversation has a flow to it, but you don't want to take out all of them, because then it can sound a little bit robotic. There's kind of an art and a science to it. Leveling out the volume is really important. You don't want some people to sound really loud and other people to sound really soft. You want to have everyone sounding roughly at the same volume. Overall, you just want to make things sound as good as possible, which is why it's, if you have somebody on your team ... we didn't really talk about putting a team together, I was going to do that. But I don't think we really have time. One person you should definitely have, or be able to hire, even as a freelancer, is an audio engineer. Someone who really knows how to do this stuff. It can make a big difference at the end of the day in terms of the quality.

And here's some editing software by the way, GarageBand, you've heard of that. I'm sure if you have a Mac, it comes free. Audacity is some software out there. It's been around forever. Free to download. Personally I don't love it. I think it's a little overly complicated. Adobe Audition's a very popular one. That's not free. I use Logic Pro. That's an Apple product, works really well. Again, I don't think this software matters much at all. You just need something that works and that you're comfortable with. The exact one you use, in my opinion, is really not that important. Okay, onto tip number five, promotion. You got to let people know that the podcast exists and how awesome it is and give them every possible reason to engage with it. And there are really two parts to it here. There's promoting the launch of the podcast and then there's the ongoing promotion.

So, this is definitely not a one time thing. And within the podcast launch, there are really two parts. You're promoting, of course, the podcast itself. And you also have to educate your audience on how to access it. Now of course, we will all be using the use the uStudio app to access internal podcasts, because why would you ever use anything else? But as easy and intuitive as that app is, still, you can't assume that people will just figure it out. You got to offer some education there, some training on how to download the app, how it works, the steps to take, because you guys, of course, as you all know, it's always easier not to do a thing than it is to do it, especially if it's something new and you're trying to get people to do a new thing they haven't done before.

If it's the least bit difficult or anything is unclear, then a lot of people just won't bother. So, the more you can do to take those roadblocks out of the way, then the more engagement you're going to get. I think it's important that the promoting the launch of the podcast, involve leadership as much as possible. That might even mean having the first episode, the welcome to the podcast episode feature a company leader, somebody with real name, with a real platform, with real name recognition. I think leadership needs to be involved, especially for the launch, just to help you get people's attention. And then of course, this is kind of obvious, but use all of your internal channels. So, to get the word out about the podcast.

And then once you have launched, the job of promoting is not done. So, it's only just begun. And really the job never ends of promoting the podcast. No matter how good the content is, no matter how well aligned it is with goals and business goals and all that, as you know, people are just busy and they're going to get distracted by all kinds of things. You have to constantly keep the podcast in front of people and remind them that there's valuable stuff here. So, again, of course, using all the internal channels goes without saying. Leveraging the podcast guests. This is really important, because there will be nobody more psyched to promote the podcast than people who have been on the podcast. They will want, at the very least they'll want their immediate group of colleagues to hear it. Like, hey, you guys, you have to listen to the next episode. I'm on it. We had an awesome interview about whatever it was.

So, don't just hope that the guests do that, equip them to do it, make it known that they're expected to do it, and then equip them with stuff to share. That can mean you can send them little 10 second audio bites that they can email people. You can send them ... you can transcribe the podcast and pull out some poll quotes for people to share on whatever internal channels you have. So, equip people, equip your guests and help them get the word out. And then again, I keep coming back to this, leverage the relationships you've built up with the management, with the people who are managing your core audience and with the goal, ultimately, of partnering with them so that the podcast has become a tool that makes their lives easier.

This is kind of like, in other words, you're essentially doing a sales job here and it's like sales 101. You have to articulate value and end up with, so you have to have a product that is genuinely valuable and you have to be able to articulate it and persuade people that, yes, this is something you actually need. If you can work that with management, I think that's the single most valuable thing you can do. And it needs to start right away. If you've brought the managers in early, they've had say in terms of the topics, the guests, stay. Not overall control, but they've had a say. They feel like they're part of this project and you delivered and you've produced an initial slate of episodes that align very closely with the manager's agendas and goals and interest and the things they need to do to motivate their teams.

A weekly meeting. A manager has a weekly or whatever the cadence is, meeting with their team. And they have an agenda. Every week they're going to be talking about this and maybe they've been sending out an email about what it is so everybody can come prepared. What if instead, you can make that the podcast. So, you can get it to the point where the manager's saying, okay, team members, before the meeting, I need everyone to listen to episodes one through three, we're going to be talking about it. And I want you to be thinking about this. I want to get your reactions to that. That way you have a builtin audience of people who are essentially being told by their bosses, listen to this podcast. That's where you want to be at the end of the day. And I think that you can get there if you develop these relationships with the right people early on. More to say about this, certainly easier said than done, but something to strive for.

And I've already, I just, this is the tip that I just mentioned. A bonus tip. We've done five tips, but here's a little bonus tip. How do you know if the podcast is working? So, a couple basic things here, you get analytics with podcasts. It's one of the cool things about them. And the uStudio app provides a suite of really powerful analytics. So, you can know things like how many people are listening. Erika, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can also know how long people are listening to given episodes. So, you can really get a good sense of, are people using this material or not. So, obviously that's one way to measure success. Again, going back to your partners, checking in with the managers, getting that anecdotal evidence. So, checking in regularly, how well is this going?

Is the podcast useful for you? Are you using it? If yes. Okay, great. How can we make it even better? If not, why not? What do we need to do to get you to be using this podcast as a management tool? And then going straight to the source, soliciting audience feedback from the people who you are trying to get to listen, what do they like? What do they not like? And different organizations have different ways of doing this through surveys and so on, but the more of this that you can do on a regular basis, the better sense you'll have overall of how well the podcast is working, are people engaging and just as important, what you can do to keep improving the podcast, because ultimately that should be a goal. Every episode should be a little bit better than the last episode. And if you're basing that on what you're hearing from your customers, from your audience, then you have a better chance of getting more engagement. So, Erika, how are we doing on time?

Erika:
Doing great. Do we have a couple more things to cover? I think so. We got time for that. We'll spend about two more minutes and then do some Q&A.

Jeremy Shere:
I mean, actually we're almost, I think we can really get to the Q&A.

Erika:
Awesome.

Jeremy Shere:
Yeah, pretty ... I guess just one last thing. And this is along the lines of measuring success, because at the end of the day, if you are part of the podcast team, if you're running the podcast, you're going to be judged on it. And whether or not the podcast continues is going to depend on how you're judged on that. So, for one thing, I think it's a good idea to have a strong sense going in. And this goes back to the beginning, to the setting the goals and having a sense of, well, how are we going to measure success? Go into it with a strong sense of how are people seeing this from the outside? At the end of the year, what kind of questions am I going to get? Now, inevitably, because of those analytics you are, of course going to get asked about, well, the numbers, the data.

And those are important, but I think it's important to not get too obsessed with download numbers, especially not right away. Podcast is a long play. It takes time to build up an audience, even if you're doing all the stuff that I've suggested, you have to earn their trust and really learn over time what engages them. And over time, I really believe, if you're doing all the right things, your audience will grow over time, but it does take time. And by the way, you should also have a sense of what's realistic. You're not going to get 100% buy-in for the podcast. You're not going to have 100% of your audience listening, but what percent is reasonable? 25%, 30%, 50%, what's a goal that you're going to be striving for quarter after quarter?

And I think if you can break it down that way, then that's what you can focus on. Not episode per episode. Well, this episode got a hundred listens and this one only got for 57. What did we do wrong? Nothing probably. It's just, there's going to be that fluctuation over time. And so it's good to kind of have some context there and be getting feedback from your audience and from folks who are not necessarily your audience, but at the end of the day, who are going to be judging you on this and asking questions about what went well, what didn't go well, how can we improve this? Should we keep doing it?

Obviously, you're going to need to have a good answer to that. So, I'll stop here. And I think we can get to the questions part. So, please any and all questions, happy me to address those. And by the way, thank you for listening to me go on and on. I hope this was useful. I really enjoy talking about this stuff. I'm alongside being a producer of podcasts. I'm just an evangelist for them. I love podcasts. I love listening to them. And I think they're a terrific tool, terrific business tool, especially for internal communication. So, thank you for listening to me.

Erika:
Awesome job, Jeremy. Thank you so much. Amazing content. So, while I recap, please open the Q&A box. Post some questions. What do you want to know? Jeremy is absolutely an expert as we've seen today. So many best practices that I encourage our customers when I meet with them regularly. A lot of this shouldn't seem new if I have been meeting with you, but definitely some best practices and his own experience in this field. So, excellent content for sure. Any questions, folks? I think you might even be able to raise your hand. If you see the raise hand option, I can unmute you if you'd like to come off mute and say a little something, or ask us a question. Come on, you got to have a bunch of questions that have been building up.

Jeremy Shere:
Or I did such an incredible job that I pre answered-

Erika:
You answered all the questions.

Jeremy Shere:
... I pre answered all the questions. That happens sometimes.

Erika:
Oh, awesome. We do have a raised hand. Steve, you can now talk.

Steve:
Thanks, Erika. Jeremy, I thought your beginning tip. I think it was tip one on manager buy-in was a really critical point. I know I've run into that as a challenge at times. Any tips on how to overcome a lack of buy-in besides the one, if the that's the focus area, if that's the pain point, any tips on how to work through some of that?

Jeremy Shere:
So, do you mean, Steve, do you mean lack of buy-in from managers? Like you're trying to partner with them and they're just not showing interest or just general lack of buy-in for the podcast generally?

Steve:
Well, at times one can lead to the other, but more the former that even getting ... Because this is a creative outlet, you might be an evangelist, but even though we're in 20, actually I've lost track of year, 2021, that this still seems newer and unusual for, I think, a lot of organizations. And so getting those managers to make the effort to buy in, to push this forward or even to be guests. It's funny, I was watching some of the things Erika put into the chat room. I know I've run into situations where guests are terrified and that's okay. They're afraid of microphones. But more so this idea of resistance to introducing this new communication.

Jeremy Shere:
Yeah. Okay. Great question. I mean, so I think one possibility, and Steve you just said it, is invite them on as guests. So, especially these are the folks that you really want to partner with, but they're hesitant for whatever reasons, bring them onto the podcast as a guest and not just to do it, but it would make sense. And frankly, we didn't really talk about this much, but choosing guests for the podcast is really, really important. And what goes into that is a combination of different things. Obviously, the guest has to be number one, a subject matter expert on whatever you're talking about. Two, it doesn't hurt if that person has some kind of platform. They have a name in the company and people will want to hear what they have to say, but also if the guest is from within your audience.

So, let's say your audience, you're doing a sales enablement podcast and so you're hoping that the sales force will listen. I think people like listening to their own people. They tend to trust people who are doing a similar job to them or the same job, or at least their boss. If their boss talks, they're going to probably listen to that. So, let's say you're doing a sales enablement podcast. You bring sales people on. That would just make sense anyway. And then they're going to spread word amongst their colleagues. And in terms of the management, it would make sense there to bring managers on too. And I think the more involved you can make people as part of the process, part of the creative process, the more sense of ownership they feel. And then it can help break down some of those barriers.

So, I think that's one thing. And then also, it goes back to something that I think I said before that you need to sell this. It's not just ... I think you're right, Steve, with a lot of people in organizations, I know I can speak for myself. This won't be the first time that there's been some cool new thing that's happened. Hey, we're rolling out this communication channel. It's going to be so amazing. And everyone has to train on it. It's going to revolutionize how we do everything. And then nothing happens or it sucks or it's botched. And that can make doing any new thing harder. So, the onus is on you then. If you're doing a podcast, something that can be seen, probably is seen as trendy, it's the latest, new cool thing. I thought podcasts were just for fun. Why are we spending all this time on it?

Then it's on you again to convince, say, the management level that no, actually this is a tool you need. Here's how you can use it. You're going to use it to help facilitate your weekly meetings. You assign people to listen the day before or the night before. That way, instead of spending the first five, 10 minutes, recapping everything and everyone's kind of zoning out, the podcast can do that for you. And you can spend that meeting doing more substantive stuff, actually having a discussion about the content or something like that. You have sell it in a way that they'll say, ah, okay. Yeah, this will actually benefit me. This isn't just something that you, Steve, want me to do because it's your project and you're desperately trying to get people to listen. It's no, this is actually about me. This was created as a tool for me that I can use that's going to make me do better in my job. I think that's just how people think generally.

Alex:
Jeremy, I'll add to chime in a little bit. If people want some proof points, a little plug for our previous webinars and upcoming webinars. If you go to the ustudio.com homepage and go under resources and digital events, you'll find recordings of previous webinars. And a lot of times to Jeremy's point, it does help to sell it, to show what other people have done. And we have a lot of good existing customers that have been very successful with their podcast programs. And you can go back and capture some quotes from their webinars, some of the information that they've shared publicly on how successful they've done at growing an audience and getting some great results and feedback from their audiences.

Erika:
Yeah. And then just to speak from experience. So, for those that don't know, I just joined uStudio a couple months ago, ran my own podcast program on uStudio at Dell. And manager buy-in was something that I spent months driving. Accountability at the management level was critical for me to get their team members to actually log in and really engage with the content, follow up, give feedback, et cetera. So, have a focus group of managers, but they're not going to be as willing to participate if their bosses aren't telling them it's important. So, start at the top, get top buy-in. So, that way your managers start to see this as valuable. If your top executives can help you cascade the importance of this content, then they will start to see it and they'll help their team members see it.

If you don't have support at the top, start at the bottom. Create a focus group of their team members, understand what they're looking for. To Jeremy's point, what does the audience want? Build what the audience wants and then the managers will start to see the value, because their team members will start telling them that there is value. So, start at the top or start at the bottom. But both of those are going to get manager buy-in. Getting them on the episodes is awesome, really fun way to do it, drive contests, but really there's some great ways to drive adoption for management. And holding them accountable is key. All right. Awesome. Jeremy, we see your email here, so just make sure we-

Jeremy Shere:
I'm sorry.

Erika:
No, no problem. All right. We got two more questions. So, Rachel, thank you so much. What are your thoughts on segments for company podcasts? Do you think they are helpful or do they hinder your message?

Jeremy Shere:
Segments for company podcasts? So, if by that, Rachel, you mean like within a show having different segments, and now we're going to do the news update and now this segment. Is that what you mean?

Erika:
You can use the chat there to let us know or I can unmute you. Yes, that's what she means. Great.

Jeremy Shere:
I mean, I don't think that ... It's a case by case basis. Again, it all goes back to your audience. Is having segments in your podcast something that's going to better engage your audience and how do you know that? Ask. So, there's only one way to find out in a way. You can do an upfront initial survey, say, hey, we're putting together a podcast and ask a few questions about it, length, how often do you want episodes? And you could ask, we're thinking of having these different segments in our podcast. Is that something you would want or does that seem like a good idea? You can get some feedback that way. Of course, a lot of people will say yes or no or whatever, without really knowing what they think about it. One nice thing podcasts is that because they're relatively fast and kind of cheap to produce, you can try stuff and then change it.

Jeremy Shere:
But the point is, so let's say you do a podcast and you have segments in it. Okay, cool. You should have some strategy behind what the segments are and why you're doing it that way. See how it goes. Get segments. I mean, get feedback. Use the analytics as much as possible to say like, okay, people seem to be listening to this part of the podcast, but not this part or skipping over this part. Double down on what works and get rid of what's not working. Everything driven by your audience and what's engaging them.

Erika:
Awesome. Okay. So, Rachel, your second question around resources for becoming a better interviewer or host. Jeremy, definitely let us know. We also have the uStudio University. So, Rachel, if you have a trial app for Nelnet, then you can actually access our uStudio University. I'll put the link in the chat and we have tons of great resources on both interviewing and being a host. But Jeremy, what are your thoughts there?

Jeremy Shere:
Yeah. Well, definitely check out the resources that Erika mentioned. I'll say, learn from podcast hosts that you like. Listen to, find. If you're already listening to podcast, choose two or three that you really, really like and listen to the hosts. Pay attention to the details. What is their hosting technique? What is their tone of voice? Pay attention to their pacing. How they do every little thing, how they introduce guests, how they ask questions, how they engage with a guest, how they respond to what guests say.

And then take from those examples what you like and what works. And then over time, just keep improving. It's something that, especially if you're new to it, it's like most things, you get better as you go. And as painful as it can sometimes be. It's also very helpful to listen to your own episodes. And especially once you get a bunch of episodes in, you'll listen to the early ones and be like, oh my God, I was so stiff back then, and now I'm so much better. That's just kind of inevitable and you'll find your own voice. But I think those are some good ways to do it.

Erika:
Awesome. We got about two minutes left. We got two questions. Let's see if we can do rapid round.

Jeremy Shere:
All right.

Erika:
First one is, do you think podcasts will last or will they go away the same as blogs?

Jeremy Shere:
That's an interesting question.

Erika:
A loaded question.

Jeremy Shere:
Yeah. I think podcasts will ... to me, it's kind of, I think podcasts are like, we're still on the top of the first inning here.

Erika:
I agree.

Jeremy Shere:
Yes. I think that podcasts will last into the foreseeable future. And frankly, I mean, if you compare them to blogs, it still seems to me that blogs are pretty plentiful and it's extremely rare to find any company website without a blog. It's pretty unusual. Maybe blogs don't have the same buzz that they once did, but they're still extremely valuable for SEO and content marketing and so on.

Jeremy Shere:
So, in fact, I do think that podcasts will go the way of blogs, but maybe not in the way that the question was suggesting. I think that eventually podcasts will be as ubiquitous as blogs. I think that we're ... there are a couple million podcasts out there in the world right now, the vast percentage of which are not really live. They just have a few episodes and they kind of die in the vine. There are like, I think, half a billion blogs out there. And so we're just starting out with podcasts. So, I don't see them going anywhere. I think they might change. They might innovate. We might see different forms and evolutions. That'll be interesting, but I don't think the media is going anywhere. I think people are just starting to discover them in the corporate world.

Erika:
Awesome. And that does bring us to time. We had one more anonymous question, but I'll make sure that we get that answered in the follow up email. Thank you all so, so much for joining us today. That wraps up our Let's Get Podding webinar. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us. We will send out the recording-

Jeremy Shere:
You're welcome.

Erika:
... the questions, the answers. And with that, we hope to see you in the future at our next webinar. Thank you everybody so much.