There are lots of “social media gurus” around today who will write you a strategy and know all of the buzzwords.

But have they ever DONE it?

We have.

The Podcast Network (TPN) is the one of the largest producers of social media in Australia. Since 2004, TPN has produced audio and video podcasts for a range of Australian corporate and government clients, including:

• Telstra
• Microsoft
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Howorth Communications
• Tourism Victoria
• Tourism Queensland
• Brisbane Marketing
• Realestate.com.au
• Data3
• Next Digital

In addition, TPN has a direct audience of over 400,000 people who consume the media that we produce under our own banner every month, making us one of the largest independent media companies in the country.

TPN’s CEO Cameron Reilly is also one of the Top Ten Twitter users in Australia and in the Top 3% worldwide.

Who needs a podcast? Anyone in:

- Marketing
- PR
- HR
- Training
- Internal Comms

Especially in this time of financial tightening, podcasting is a tool more companies should be using. It’s a very cost-effective way to reach the key members of your audience on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you’re going to produce social media, you should work with someone who has actually some experience producing media for large audiences and isn’t just all talk.

There are a few different kinds of podcasts my clients tend to be using at the moment:

1. The External “Transparency” podcast – this kind of podcast aims to make a client more accessible to their clients. It can be either video or audio and involves me doing interviews with people inside the company about what they (and their division) actually do. This typically suits a very large org that wants to soften or humanise it’s image. The strategy is that their clients/customers will subscribe to the podcast to get a better understanding of what each of the divisions is working on and how best to engage with them.

2. The External “Value-Add” podcast – this kind of podcast usually has content completely unrelated to the actual services and products of the org, but which is designed to be valuable to the target audience. Typically it might involve interviews with world leaders in the same field. Each podcast is wrapped with an audio or video header and footer, “This podcast is brought to you by….”, to keep the client’s message and brand in front of their audience every week.

3. The Internal Management podcast – this podcast involves video or audio interviews with members of the management team (CEO, CFO, COO, HR Director, etc) on a regular basis to go out to the employees via their intranet. It allows the senior leadership of an org to efficaciously communicate business updates with their teams around the country and world on a weekly basis and in a personable manner. It might also involved interviews with employees throughout the business. Who are they? What do they do? What is their focus? This is a great tool for encouraging cross-collaboration in large orgs.
4. The External Product/Service podcast – this podcast has to be handled cleverly. Most people aren’t going to subscribe to a podcast that’s just a marketing vehicle UNLESS it’s actually cool and informative or very funny. Often the best way to handle this kind of podcast is to get your customers involved. Get THEM talking about or demonstrating your products and services. Make it about THEM, not about you.

Demographics: There’s a common misconception that podcast audiences are still only the young tech savvy folks. While this was probably true back in 2004/5, it certainly isn’t any longer. The success of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, combined with the marketing of podcasts by mainstream media like the ABC, has actually skewed the demographic to a 40+ audience (according to the surveys I run on TPN’s audience each year).

So if your company is looking for assistance in producing social media that actually adds business value, then turn to someone who has actually DONE IT – drop Cameron an email.

Here are my contact details to make it easy:

Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
tel: +61 400455334
email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com