What on earth is an “internal communications podcast”? That rather utilitarian phrase masks the simple truth – it is just a podcast for company employees. Podcasts make for a pretty popular choice for companies wishing to diversify their output.
Plurawl, a company specializing in clothing and prints for the Latino community, run a motivational podcast on their site. The podcast isn’t the main attraction, but it becomes just another draw of visitors to the space – and some of them are likely to stick around long enough to become customers.
That is one of the things a podcast offers. Another is that it can be a marvelous tool for fostering workforce cohesion and creating a sense amongemployees that the company is worth sticking with, that they can see their professional future intertwined with the success of the company.
One of the ways this is realized is to hire motivational speakers for corporate events, another is to create a podcast for the employees themselves to listen to. This is the internal communications podcast.
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How to Get Started
For many starting a podcast, the beginning can be pretty tough. If the podcast is to be hosted on a website that is already attracting visitors for other reasons (for example, an ecommerce site) then you have a bit of head start here. But even so, a brand-new podcast is going to have no dedicated listeners, it is going to be pretty unknown, and it is probably going to be made with (initially) limited resources.
Accordingly, there is some “getting over the hump” to be done, which is one of the reasons why many new podcasts record a series of episodes before they broadcast of the first one. This frees up the podcast makers and allows them to focus on promotion over the time that the first few episodes are going out.
For an internal communications podcast, you have a bit of an advantage. You already know who your audience (the whole audience) are, and new listeners don’t need to be “attracted” in the conventional way. With a good internal communications podcast, a new listener is simply a new employee.
So, you should make the most of this initial advantagebut don’t be fooled into thinking it makes things easy. You still need to create a podcast that people actually want to listen to. This means all the usual techniques such as finding great guests, posting consistently, and doing a bit of promotion all still apply.
The Content
But what should your podcast be about? Well, seeing as it is a corporate podcast with a listenership made up entirely of your employees, it will normally be about the company, issues relating to the company and topics involving the company’s goals and growth.
Nevertheless, you should be careful to avoid creating a podcast that simply serves as a type of memo. A podcast can be about the company and still be entertaining. If it is about the company’s future and you have employees who are invested in that, then you have struck the content jackpot for an internal communications podcast.
Of course, this can take many forms. It’s all a balancing act between content that is strictly about the company and content that goes a bit beyond that and is entertaining in its own right. Inform and entertain – that should be your goal.
Conclusion
So, along with blogs and other secondary activities, a podcast is a great idea for any company. And an internal communications podcast is perfect for those companies that care about their employees and are trying to do what they can to make their employees care about them.
