According to a recent study by Adobe Analytics, podcast mobile app usage has risen 60% since January 2018, and the sector’s growth is expected to continue as 45% of listeners said they plan on tuning into more podcasts in the future. With this data in mind, it’s no shock that businesses are finding success leveraging private podcasting for their own enterprise.

Why Private Podcasting? 

There are many reasons businesses are turning to private podcasting to connect with their workforce.

• Podcasting is incredibly popular.
• Podcasts give you the ability to reach non-desk workers.
• Podcasts give you the ability to make transit time more productive. 
• Podcasting is so easy, it lowers the bar to production and frequent use.
• Streaming media establishes “communication accountability."
• Secure podcasting can protect your corporate content.
• And, MANY more!

A private podcast for businesses is just what it sounds - creating a podcast that only your employees or partners can access. What are the specific use cases a business would want to start a podcast that is private, you ask?

Private Podcasting for Sales Enablement.

Businesses can use private podcasts to share product and customer news with their reps while they're in the field. Looking for inspiration for your next sales enablement private podcast? Written sales talking points can become an audio or video pitch practice. Customer feedback can become live conversations with your customers on a podcast, sharing their experience with your company. Competitive battlecards can become podcast tutorials with the reps who know the competition inside and out. The topics are endless! Just short, 5-minute daily or weekly audio updates can make a huge difference in keeping sales reps continually informed.

Private Podcasting for Training & Learning.

Private podcasts modernize training in the business. Audio and video are 500% to 700% more effective than text for communicating information that people remember. In short, they're just a better way to learn.

With private podcasting, trainings can be consumed on the go, rewound and repeated as needed to ensure learning objectives are met. Using trackable audio and video to deliver required trainings will help you confirm they’re actually viewed by employees.

Private Podcasting for Internal Communications.

Whether you'd like to broadcast internal meetings, executive communications or product launches to your offices worldwide, private podcasting can ensure that every member of your team has access to the most up-to-date, accurate, and high-quality information no matter where they are. Many enterprises are now live streaming town hall meetings via private podcasts. With this medium, executives can share updates in a conversational format without a lot of prep time or the tyranny of ‘looking camera-ready.’

Private podcasts can also be a great medium for topics covering supplemental-learnings and sensitive items such as employee emotional health topics, leadership advice for management, diversity within your company, and more. The sky’s the limit with private podcast topics!

Creating a Team for Your Private Podcast

Your success with private podcasting will likely require a dedicated team with specialized roles. As you plan, it helps to know the types of team members who will need a seat at the table. Here are the most common categories of stakeholders that you should keep in mind as you create a private podcast.

Executive Sponsors: These are the people who underwrite your private podcast show and/or allow it to exist. Maybe they fund it directly, or maybe they simply give you permission to spend time on it.

Titles: C-Suite, SVPs, Executive Directors

Producer / Creative Team: These are the ideates and makers who are great at transitioning what needs to be said into the best way to say it. They brainstorm private podcast content ideas, come up with innovative ways to engage the audience, make the private podcast content, and release it according to a schedule or editorial calendar

Title: Producer, Editor, Creative Director, Content Manager

Strategist: These are the messaging mavens who are looking for new or better ways to reach or engage their audience. They translate company goals into communications objects that are observable and measurable. Sometimes, they will take an active role in private podcast content creation; other times, they will brief a creative or content team.

Title: Communications, Enablement, Engagement or Strategy

Audience: Treat your audience as part of the team! Done right, your audience strategy shouldn’t merely be about acquiring listeners. It should be about creating feedback loops between you and your audience. How will you create participation and engagement within your private podcast?

Titles: Employees, partners, customers

Host Your Private Podcast

If you are wanting to create a private podcast, you will need to find a platform to host and deliver your podcast to your employees securely. Lucky for you, uStudio’s private podcasting app will always get your messages through to your employees.

With uStudio, you can skip the RSS feed and distribute content securely from a private app that you control. Our enterprise media cloud meets the most stringent IT requirements and includes secure, redundant infrastructure for podcast hosting. Your highest-quality, original files are always available and backed up. And, you have complete visibility and control over who can access those assets.

When you pick a hosting platform for your private podcast, it is important to look for a platform that offers the toughest IT security, detailed podcast analytics, an intuitive interface, and features that mimic a consumer podcast experience. Request a free personalized demo of uStudio here to see how our application can work for your businesses’ private podcast.

Record and Produce Your Private Podcast

There are helpful pieces of equipment that every podcaster needs to create their private podcast. Our helpful shopping guide will outline the items to consider buying at all different price points. To be honest, many uStudio customers find success recording from their phone. If you can talk, then you can start podcasting. Check out our podcast gear guide here.

When it comes to producing episodes, it can be helpful to scope out a few episodes to record at once. By planning ahead, you can maximize your time editing and keep to a strict release schedule without feeling constant pressure to record, edit and publish. Just like with popular consumer podcasts, there should be a regular cadence so employees develop listening habits and expectations.

Distribute Your Private Podcast

For businesses concerned with privacy, it's important for your media app to tie into an approved user directory. You'll need to quickly authenticate users using SSO or other authentication protocols. A sophisticated user authentication function provides the peace of mind that your corporate podcast content will only be accessed by those it is intended for.

uStudio is only media platform company with a multi-tier security model that offers security configuration optionality at each of the page, player, and stream levels.

uStudio’s grouping and audience segmentation features allows private podcast admins to restrict access to podcast content by location, department, seniority and more. This allows you to produce personalized learning material to different pillars within your organization and deliver the exact type of content certain groups are looking for. The private podcast end user will also feel more in control and more important, as they have podcast content that’s just for them.

With a simple tap, you can upload your private podcasts securely from any device and make them available when and where they need to be in seconds. The uStudio mobile application supports push notifications to audience members who have allowed push notifications on their app. A new push notification can be triggered to your audience if a new episode is added to the news section or a new episode is added to a podcast show in which the audience member subscribes. This, combined with the ability to distribute content to any device, allows for successful content distribution for your employees.

Promote Your Private Podcast

Promotion of your private podcast is one of the most important steps to audience engagement. The good news is: it’s much easier than you might think. From leveraging internal champions within your business, to embedding share links, to forming a reliable release cadence to create listening habits, there are many ways to promote your private podcasts to your employees. We’ve put together a few tips and tricks to successfully promote your business podcast to your employees in our blog here.

Measure Success Within Your Private Podcast

As with any technology or communication medium you implement in your workforce, you’ll want to measure the success of how it is performing. It’s important to observe how your employees are consuming and reacting to your podcast so that you can realize if changes need to be made within your content.

We recently spoke with CommPro about the keys for successful measurement of your private podcast. You can read our tips and tricks on their website here.

Still confused about the benefits of private podcasting? The ability to deliver and consume key messages and training on-the-go will turn commute and travel time into found productivity gains for you and your teams. Enter your current business metrics in our ROI Calculator to view your potential results.

Other Helpful Resources from uStudio: 

• Potential Hosts and Guest Speakers for Your Private Podcast
• Elements That Can Level Up Your Business Podcast
• Free Resources for Improving Your Private Podcast
• Tips for Designing a Podcast Editorial Calendar
• Customize the uStudio Podcast Application to Your Business
• How Dell Exceeded 30% Podcast Adoption Rate Within Their First Year
• Podcast FAQs

Creating a private podcast for your business is a lot easier than it might seem. uStudio is helping companies leverage podcasting and video for their internal communications and training needs without sacrificing IT security or scalability. Contact us today if you have any questions.