How to OPTIMIZE on what the CONSUMER is actually MISSING . . .
As evidence of the popularity of podcasts, consider these facts:
- There are over 115,000 podcasts in existence.
- 32 million people listen to podcasts monthly.
- The average podcast lasts about 30 minutes.
- Users listen to about 22 minutes per podcast.
- Users prefer podcasts that last less than 16 minutes.
- The average commute time in the U.S. is 25 minutes
- The most popular podcasts have a disproportionate number of listeners / viewers
Now ask why Play.It? Here are the steps to promoting excellence in podcasting!
Source: Copyright
© 2015 Cision, Inc. Legal
1. R e s p e c t P e o p l e ’ s T i m e
Increasing the likelihood of consumers has been proven to come with shortening
podcast time limits. Here are some popular podcast that improved after producers
implemented time constraints:
The Moth podcast is a popular podcast that lasts between 10-15 minutes.
Christopher Penn and John Wall’s Marketing Over Coffee clocks in at around 20
minutes per episode.
Science Friday podcasts 8-10 minute segments embedded on various blog sites.
Source: Copyright
© 2015 Cision, Inc. Legal
2. P l a n P o d c a s t C o n t e n t
A neat aspect of podcasting is that you can redeliver content that you already have
via a different medium. For PR practitioners, this means that you can reinforce key
aspects of your message without redundancy.
Source: Copyright
© 2015 Cision, Inc. Legal
3. A u g m e n t Y o u r A u d i o w i t h T E X T
Text is paramount for podcasts. Search engines don’t listen to and deduce context
from audio . iTunes and YouTube don’t deduce context from audio alone.
So text is important for three elements: Tags | Descriptions | Text (Blog post/Article)
Tags serve to categorize your content.
Descriptions serve to explain the content to potential listeners.
Source: Copyright
© 2015 Cision, Inc. Legal
4.1 H o w a S u c c e s s f u l P o d c a s t O p t i m i z e s o n D e s c r i p t i o n
Akin to the “meta description” of a post, it is a synopsis of a podcast, or of each episode. A
great example would be the popular podcast, Invisibilia, which describes the podcast as this:
“Invisibilia (Latin for all the invisible things) is about the invisible forces that control human
behavior – ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions. Co-hosted by Lulu Miller and Alix Spiegel,
Invisibilia interweaves narrative storytelling with scientific research that will ultimately make
you see your own life differently.”
And here is a description for one of their episodes:
“Are computers changing human character? Is our closeness with computers changing us as a
species? Alix and Lulu look at the ways technology affects us.”
Source: NPR (2015)
4.2 T e x t | S e a r c h E n g i n e O p t i m i z a t i o n
Text is a complete transcription of a podcast and serves two purposes:
1) Search engines can understand the entirety of the podcast content
2) People can save time and read the content
(or can reference back to parts of it without having to skim the audio)
You can’t do this for many of the distribution methods (such as iTunes, Stitcher, etc.) – but since
Play.It hosts the file, you can transcribe in to a post or to another resource.
A couple of examples of people doing this are Michael Auzenne and Mark
Horstman of Manager Tools who offer podcast transcriptions to their paid
premium members and Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays, which are always
transcribed at the bottom of their posts.
Source: NPR (2015)
5. N u m b e r o f L I S T E N S d o e s n o t a l w a y s e q u a l s u c c e s s
“The (podcasting) format really lends itself to advertisers. When you watch TV, you
check out during the commercials. In a podcast, you’re there…. can stop midway
through and say ‘I want to mention quickly blah blah blah’ and then I’m back to the
interview. It’s not like people are going to say ‘Ah, I got to speed up [and skip the ad].’”
– Bill Simmons
You can probably find listener or download stats from different
avenues (Google Analytics if you’re hosting the media file
yourself), but understanding how many people are listening is a
pretty superficial measure of the effectiveness of podcasts.
Once a person listens to a podcast they are (more or less) a captive audience. This doesn’t mean that you
have to sell your audience anything, but you can leverage the same tactics that a sponsor might use to
attribute referrals to measure the effectiveness of your podcasts. For example, you might encourage people
to subscribe to a newsletter using a unique URL, or give listeners a discount using a unique promotion code.
Source: Bill
Simmons
6. D i s t r i b u t e . P r o m o t e . E m b e d .
“Since you’re in the PR/marketing
realm, (hopefully) you understand
that distribution doesn’t follow just
because you’ve been prominently
placed on a list. You need to promote
your podcast in the same manner
that you would amplify content that’s
written or visual. Social media, paid
(yikes) media, email, et cetera. If
you’re devoting resources to a
podcast, it doesn’t make a whole lot
of sense to release episodes without
proper promotion.”
- Stephan Dubner
Source: Bill
Simmons
7. B e n c h m a r k A p p r o p r i a t e l y
There are a lot of really poorly-conceived podcasts. Listening to an hour of a bad
podcast can invoke a hubris that you can do the same thing better.
It’s important to benchmark against the people/networks who are doing things that
you want to do, and not against people that are creating bad content.
Lastly, Let’s execute these efforts in the following ways:
Source: NPR (2015)
9. E x e c u t i o n B E G I N S w i t h C B S L o c a l !
1. Take time to listen to podcasts occasionally. It is difficult to produce, promote, or
constructively critique without consuming your own product.
2. Implement Old-Business/New-Business meeting structure so that everyone gets a
chance to speak and come to decisions for operationalizing the tasks and efforts.
3. Develop a schedule for your network. Just like television and even music, podcasts
are most effective when the audience/consumer has a schedule to look forward to.
Scandal, Empire, Game of Thrones wouldn’t be successful shows without a set date and time for consumers to view
and when show dates/times change dramatic efforts are set in place to ensure the consumer can still participate.
4. Develop of a written Plan of Action (POA) structure. Most humans are creatures of
habit and immensely visual. A visual POA for ideas, efforts, and executions will keep
members accountable of task items.
Source: WODU Studios
– JD Entertainment (2010 – 2013)
10. E x e c u t i o n C O N T I N U E S w i t h C B S L o c a l !
5. Audit Regularly: Seek out shows that are not performing well and hold the talent
accountable for showmanship quality. Just like a television network, if a show does not perform
well their season does not get renewed.
6. Produce Quality vs. Quantity. A few shows with great ratings is a better network
than the one with plenty of shows with no consumption or audience.
7. Do something different! Sure evaluate what other networks are doing, but if there
is something BRAND NEW that Play.It can introduce to the industry, it will place a
mark in the podcasting industry.
8. Hold regular (quarterly) meetings (these can be via phone conference) with the
talents of the network. This will ensure that the VISION of Play.It is branded within
it’s talent base, as they serve as the voice of the Play.It Brand!
Source: WODU Studios
– JD Entertainment (2010 – 2013)
Catch the VISION! Have Fun!
And Execute It. If we are ALL
work on one accord, Play.It
will be the BEST PODCASTING
NETWORK … it can happen!