Episode Summary
Podcasts have become a major form of content marketing for tech brands in the past few years. And many companies use them to connect with their customers and build brand credibility. But while they are great for external audiences, some organizations are also using them for internal communications.
In this episode of the Recorded Content podcast, our host Tristan Pelligrino gives a recap of the interview he recently had on the Internal Marketing podcast with Kerry-Ann Betton Stimpson. He talks about the benefits of internal podcasts for companies and why podcasts are more than an audio channel.
Guest Profile
Name: Tristan Pelligrino
What he does: He’s the co-founder of Motion
Company: Motion
Noteworthy: Tristan is the co-host of the Recorded Content podcast
Key Insights
- An internal podcast is a great way to talk to your employees and create an intimate connection with them. Tristan compares regular podcasts to internal podcasts. He says, “A normal podcast is for external audiences typically it’s produced by the marketing team and that’s to get your message out into the marketplace and to connect with thought leaders and that sort of thing. Whereas in an internal podcast, the audience switches to a focus on your internal employees and a lot of times almost equates an internal podcast with a private podcast which has a different technical component to it.”
- How can an internal podcast benefit your company? There are many ways your company could benefit from internal podcasts. Tristan shares the top three reasons to start a private podcast. He says, “An internal podcast gives your employees a window into the thoughts of your company’s leadership. With remote and hybrid work more common, an internal podcast allows execs to share company updates in a very informal way. Transparency can be a core value of your company, but it’s only true if your leadership follows through. The second is consistency. When I worked at larger organizations, I was a consultant for several Fortune 500 companies, consistent internal communication was always a problem for me. Sometimes I received an email newsletter, sometimes I got a link to watch a video. But with an internal podcast, we’re seeing companies be more consistent with how they share ideas internally. And the third reason we’ve seen internal podcasts work is that they’re a flexible format.”
- Podcasts are more than an audio channel. Podcasts have truly taken the world by storm over the last few years, so it’s finally time to understand that they are much more than an audio channel. Tristan explains, “The most important thing is that podcasts are more than an audio channel. So just think about them more along the lines of a conversation and how conversations can work for you in your business. And we even like to think that a podcast is creating a conversation flywheel and that’s what can create this flywheel internally with an internal podcast and just educating, informing, and inspiring your employees. Then just think about how that would also translate to your customers and the impact that it can have there.”
Episode Highlights
An internal podcast helps create an intimate connection between the company’s leadership and its employees
If you think about that concept and how useful that would be for a company, it really opens your eyes quite a bit. If you think about your company’s leadership and getting their mission out there and getting buy-in from employees and how important that is, an internal podcast is a great way to do that because you really have that intimate connection to the company’s leadership.
Transparency is essential to the success of a company
I think one of the big reasons, probably the most important thing, is that transparency piece which a lot of companies state is a goal. They want to be more transparent with their employees. They want to be able to share information, progress, where they’re going, and the mission and vision.
Internal shows are informal which helps you to be more consistent with the production
Then the other big component, and we talked about this with external podcasts when you and I spoke on my show, is that a podcast is just a way to communicate consistently. And I think with an internal show you can be a bit more informal. It doesn’t have to be as branded because it already has that natural, it’s encapsulated in your brand already. It’s distributed internally so that’s already a given.
The podcast format is very flexible
The nice thing about a podcast is that if you do a video podcast internally, you can then produce audio, video, and written material from that one piece of content that your executive creates. So if you think about the efficiency that’s rolled into that process, you have your CEO spend 30 minutes in front of a camera and you’re able to produce all this material that people could then consume in a lot of different ways.
Having a strategy for your podcast is a must
A lot of folks come to us even when they’re in the sales cycle, they’re trying to figure out, “How do we get this show off the ground?” whether it’s an internal podcast or even on the external side for marketing purposes. They’re asking questions about microphones, headphones, video or audio. But I think it all rolls back to answering two key questions for your show, whether that’s an external or an internal podcast, and they are: Who’s the show for specifically, can you define who the show is for? And then how does the show help?
