Never has it been more important for employers to communicate clearly with employees. The physical distance between employees, particularly among those who haven’t previously worked remotely, creates the potential for miscommunication as well as the fraying of social bonds that keep workers engaged and motivated.

Podcasting for business and personal use has not only gone mainstream but the growth keeps accelerating. With the advent of live audio available to privately stream via podcasts, you can unlock even more business value. With live audio podcasting, shows are broadcasted live to your audience through uStudio’s private application who is listening as you are recording your audio.

Here are a few ways that leveraging live podcast streaming can bolster your business.

Increase Participation from Remote Employees

Remote work has increased dramatically, and it’s here to stay. A live audio podcast is a great alternative to the standard conference call protocol. They are a much more convenient and engaging way to ‘dial in’ remotely to important company meetings and announcements. Forget dial-in numbers and participant codes - remote workers can listen to live meetings and updates by simply tapping the uStudio app. If there is a relevant live event in progress, they can simply tap and listen, whether they are on  a walk with their kids or juggling household chores. If you are traveling and your wifi drops, the uStudio app will auto-pause and reconnect when you have network coverage, to ensure you don’t miss a beat.

Unlike a traditional video or audio conference, it will be automatically saved in a convenient format for employees to listen to afterwards if they weren’t able to catch it live. This is a particularly relevant aspect to keep in mind when a workforce is located across multiple time zones.

Protect Investments In High-Wage Workers

As explained in our blog, The ROI of Implementing an Enterprise Podcast Solution, there is at least one resource involved in communications that is relatively easy to quantify: time. An employee’s time does not come cheap, and any on-the-clock time where they’re not working amounts to a significant cost to the company. Windshield time is usually extremely unproductive. It becomes much more productive and delivers a greater ROI if employees are able to use it to receive sales guidance, workforce motivation or other important corporate communications that are successfully delivered through live audio podcasting.

Imagine if the difference between your busy sales reps’ success and failure was having access to the most current company news and announcements as they happen. Being able to tap an app to listen to critical updates on the go becomes invaluable.

Move Faster and Share Rapidly 

During a time of crisis, you want to be able to share information with your employees fast. When your message is urgent or game-changing, sometimes on-demand isn’t fast enough. Recording video, for example, requires a lot of preparation. Studio time has to be booked, resources have to be reserved, and presentation slides are drafted and re-drafted with lots of people reviewing and revising. That can really slow things down. Sometimes, you have messages just need to get out. Live audio is essentially as easy as picking up the phone. Or as one person put it, “if you can talk, you can podcast.” What’s more, do you really want to spend all of that team time and resources over-preparing material that is better-explained with a simple conversation.

Live audio lets you move fast, removing the friction that recording sessions or live in-person events create. Executives can share updates in a conversational format without a lot of prep time or the tyranny of ‘looking camera-ready.’

Nurture the Culture

In our Podcast on Podcasting episode, “5 Warning Signs Your Corporate Culture is in Need of Podcasting,” we spoke to CEO coach and award-winning author of Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders, about the urgent need for executives to rethink their corporate culture with audio in mind. In particular, companies who are overly-reliant on email are missing the opportunity to create buy-in, understanding and pride with shared, real-time moments conveyed with audio. He reported that switching from an email culture to an audio-based culture increases employee understanding 500%.

Live-streaming also offers the opportunity to recreate the call-in radio show atmosphere, where listeners can ask questions (perhaps through Slack) that hosts will respond to in real-time. This is particularly compelling when there is a subject-matter expert being featured who employees might not always have the opportunity to engage with. Not only will working towards forming a community around your private podcast benefit the health and engagement of your shows, it will benefit your company culture as a whole as well.

How Live Audio Podcasting is Used in Enterprises

There are many frequent use cases for live podcasting in the enterprise. Companies use a secure, live podcast to share executive addresses, company meetings, knowledge sharing opportunities and much more. The opportunities are endless!

Best Practices for Live Audio Podcasting

Since these podcasts are recorded in real-time it is important that you are organized and prepared for each episode as you will not have the ability to perform post-production editing. If your live episode features guest speakers, they should be prompt to record. Your same on-demand podcast equipment can be used for your live podcast, but be sure to have a test run before going live, if possible, to avoid any technical issues.

Want more info? Get the details on live audio streaming, or request a demo and a uStudio team member will be in touch shortly.