Have you listened to a podcast recently? Before you can say yes, we’re going to hit you with this fact: According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans that listened to a podcast in the past month (17 percent) has nearly doubled since 2008 (nine percent).
Jay Soderberg, head of content at BlogTalkRadio, an online talk radio and podcast hosting platform, unravels this finding.
When Soderberg began podcasting at ESPN about nine years ago, he immediately realized traditional radio wasn’t what people wanted anymore.
“Podcasting is all about sending content that audiences want to hear when they want to hear it,” says Soderberg, a WeWork Charging Bull member, who also highlights the personal element of podcasting. “I literally put the shows into my ears with the earbuds. Stories—I’m hearing them inside my body.”
Podcasts also have an air of authenticity that other media don’t provide, according to Marcia Stepanek, CEO of BrandStories Studios, a multimedia storytelling platform.
“Print is fine and I enjoy it, but there’s no substitute for a good conversation,” explains Stepanek, in terms of learning “on a very emotional and intellectual level.”
According to Stepanek, a WeWork Bryant Park member, “Video certainly carries strong emotional power, but radio has the ability to sustain that emotional resonance for a longer period of time because people don’t have to just sit and watch it.”
And that power extends even further because of the visual culture we live in today, says Naomi Weekes, executive assistant at Pretty Good Friends, a comedy production company. She says podcasting is a “non-biased way of entertainment,” especially with news, where images and videos can be interpreted in biased ways.
“You can’t rely on images when you have to really describe what’s going on with words,” said Weekes, a WeWork South Station member. “Podcasts wouldn’t do good if it was just the same sound bites over and over again, unlike how broadcast news uses the same images over and over again.”
Compared to how powerful and engaging it can be, a podcast is relatively easy to create with any audio recording device. Stepanek recommends keeping it simple, with a USB microphone to plug into a computer and user-friendly audio editing software that won’t break your bank, such as Audacity or GarageBand. Soderberg’s suggestions for potential media? Skype and Google Hangouts.
While making a podcast isn’t difficult, monetizing it is a much bigger challenge, according to Soderberg. He points out that measuring how many people are listening to your entire podcast versus short snippets is still a problem many podcasters face today, especially concerning advertising revenue.
Advertisers usually pay podcasters to read or perform an advertisement during a podcast by CPM (cost per mille, or per thousand listens).
“So if you’re in the field, and you wanna make a little money while doing something you love with a podcast, that measurement is key—having a measurement an advertiser can trust,” says Soderberg.
Stepanek stresses that potential difficulties will involve not just audio editing, but also learning to facilitate a conversation.
“I don’t think you can wing this stuff,” says Stepanek, who relates podcasting to a comfortable dinner conversation, when you have “to be curious, to be prepared, and to know about your subject matter and your subject to gently guide the conversation.”
Soderberg mainly looks for three things when determining how great a podcast is, all of which revolve around whether or not it’s “listener-focused,” meaning it’s educational, entertaining, or inspirational.
“If it offers all three, that’s the gold,” says Soderberg.