It’s no secret that podcasting is now a mainstream fixture for media consumption. In 2017, 112 million Americans age 12 or older have listened to a podcast, up 11% year over year. And now--wouldn’t you know it--innovative internal communications teams are creating private corporate podcasts to deliver important internal messages, engage employees, and train teams.

But if a podcast downloads in the forest, does anyone hear it? In working closely with senior leaders and program managers at large companies, we’ve observed a common set of strategies - amounting to a success formula - that the best internal innovators are using, not just to create private secure podcasts, but to make it gamechanging for their organizations.

1. Get executive buy-in. CEOs and other senior executives have often been through professional media training and, even more often, have key messages that they want the whole company to receive and understand. Tap into their ability and interest, not just in front of the mic, but in backing you and your team up for the initiative. You’ll also want executive support when promoting the corporate podcast initiative internally.
2. Get IT buy-in. If done correctly, taking on a secure podcasting initiative will mean taking on some new tools or tech. IT will want to make sure that requirements around reliability and end-to-end security will be met. Get them involved and blessing the effort early so you don’t get jammed up before showtime.
3. Have a plan for the content. A secure podcast is only as good as the content it delivers. Do some internal research on what shows and episode ideas will be most resonant and download-worthy from various employees and teams. Once you know what content will be best, build out a schedule. If your internal communications are already fairly complex, consider how using a secure internal podcast show can complement or amplify other internal communication moments.
4. Make it easy. Remember that beyond their work-lives employees are listening to podcasts through software from companies like Apple, Google and Spotify. If the experience of accessing and playing your organization’s internal podcast episodes is much harder than these tools, it will severely hold back adoption and consumption. The ideal chord to strike is a consumer-grade experience with IT-compliant security.
5. Enlist other teams. Stay connected with department heads as you proceed and before launch so that they can reinforce with their teams. If your first program is successful, it’s possible they may want to partner with you to build out team-specific programs (i.e. functional training, etc).
6. Involve employees. Build up excitement and get ideas from employees across the company when creating your private podcast. That way there’s anticipation and readiness once you’re ready to launch.
7. Measure engagement. Perhaps most importantly, be sure you have a plan and KPIs for measuring your corporate podcast’s engagement. You should be able to answer questions like: How many employees downloaded the app? How many employees have listened to at least one episode? How many employees listened to a full episode? Are some teams tuning in less than others?

These 7 recommendations are by no means everything you need to do to implement a successful secure podcasting initiative. But based on the large, innovative companies we’ve been working with, these tips are the most common difference-makers we’ve seen.

Want to implement your company’s secure podcasting initiative? Get a demo to see how our secure podcasting solution makes it easy for you AND employees.