Should your business start a podcast?
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Discover how podcasts can help you engage your customers and employees.
In recent years, podcasts have continued to grow in popularity. In 2021, over 19.1 million people in the UK listened to podcasts, and this is predicted to grow to 28 million listeners by 2026. We’re also seeing people listening to podcasts on a regular basis – 25.5% of people say they listen to podcasts weekly.
Podcasts are becoming an effective communication channel for a whole host of businesses across different industries. Just like how we now consider social media a fundamental way to engage with our customers, marketers and comms professionals are starting to view podcasts in the same way. But podcasts aren’t just relevant for your customers or external audiences, they are a great way to increase engagement with the workforce too.
So how can you effectively leverage podcasts as a communications channel for your business?
Positioning your experts as thought leaders
One of this year’s trends in podcasting is the growing demand for educative content delivered in an entertaining and interesting way, as listeners want to stay informed and be inspired. Podcasts provide an opportunity for experts in your business to reach new audiences and share their knowledge, experience, and insights in an engaging way.
Connecting through real-time interaction
Another podcasting trend growing in popularity this year is live podcasting. Providing real-time engagement and a stronger connection with listeners, live podcasting provides an opportunity to deliver truly authentic content. Listeners have the opportunity to ask questions or guide the conversation in the way they want it to go and engage with speakers on a more personal level.
Exploring your brand personality
With podcasts typically having a more friendly and informal tone, they provide an opportunity for you to bring a more conversational element to your brand personality. Whilst listeners are looking to be entertained by podcasts, many are also keen to learn something new. This presents a real opportunity for businesses to provide informative and interesting content in a relatable and enjoyable way.
Communicating with employees
When communicating with employees, it can sometimes be difficult to break through the noise of day-to-day communications. Office-based employees constantly receive emails or instant messages, whilst frontline staff may be on the road or working in the warehouse where checking these channels might be more difficult. A podcast gives you the opportunity to engage employees through a different channel, perhaps whilst they are driving or commuting.
Giving employees a voice
Podcasts don’t just have to be a way to communicate with employees – they are a great opportunity to give employees a chance to talk about the things that matter to them. Whether you invite employees to be guest speakers or start an employee-led podcast series, this can be a great way to start conversations about important topics within your workforce.
Our top podcasting tips
- Release episodes regularly. People look forward to the next episode of their favourite podcasts being released – just like they would with the next episode of a TV series.
- Make sure your podcast is available on all the most popular platforms, such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
- Promote your podcast via your other channels. 32% of people hear about new podcasts through social media.
- Keep the tone conversational and friendly. Listeners typically find these types of podcasts relatable and enjoyable as they can feel like a conversation they would have themselves.
- Consider bringing in guest speakers who are relevant to the target audience.
If you’re looking for support in starting your podcasting journey, we’re here to help. From communications plans to recording podcast episodes, we can provide the support you need.
Creating a culture of sustainability
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
How can businesses promote environmental action and cultivate a culture of sustainability among employees?
Businesses that embrace sustainability can build trust with customers and stakeholders, improve their reputation, and foster a positive work environment. However, despite the growing importance of sustainability, many businesses are struggling to meet their goals. One key reason for this is that they often fail to properly engage their employees and take them on the sustainability journey.
As organizations adapt to combat climate change, the focus must shift inward – towards internal culture and how employees embrace the necessary changes to minimize their impact on the planet. Fostering a sustainability culture isn’t just advantageous; it’s a powerful opportunity for positive change, both within the workplace and beyond.
While many businesses acknowledge the need for environmental action, creating real passion among employees requires something more. We need to create a culture of sustainability.
Creating Green Monday – a collective sustainability learning opportunity
At Something Big, we’ve been on a long sustainability journey. Bolstered by our B Corp status, we’ve measured carbon emissions, offset through carbon avoidance projects, embraced sustainable suppliers and production, increased our carbon literacy through tailored employee training, celebrated the circular economy and initiated easy recycling for our team. And we have of course been taking our customers on this journey too.
To kick off 2024 on a green note, we transformed Blue Monday into Green Monday – a day dedicated to embracing positive environmental change. We ran a series of engaging and interactive sessions covering a variety of sustainability-related topics, from making our personal finance greener to understanding how to recycle tricky items, leverage the circular economy and reducing our food waste, even getting going with planting our office garden. For lunch, we rescued unsold food through Too Good To Go to share, introducing the idea of buying surplus food to many of the team. We finished the session with our ‘Pledge Tree’, which is now full of commitments inspired by our newfound knowledge.
But the impact goes far beyond Green Monday itself. Shared experiences not only deepen our understanding of the issues but also strengthen our team culture. Coming together sparks meaningful conversations and roots new ideas within the fabric of our team. It creates a foundation of shared understanding and a launchpad for continuous conversation. Internally run events and impactful communications have a lifespan that impacts culture in the longer term.
But what did Green Monday teach us about fostering a sustainability culture?
Creating a sustainability culture
Our journey with Green Monday unearthed valuable insights into fostering a workplace culture that prioritises the planet. Here are key takeaways:
- Keep it achievable: For Green Monday we curated a series of engaging sessions covering a variety of different sustainability-related subjects, but crucially we started conversations on topics that are within individual control. We steered clear of topics that require expensive or extreme lifestyle changes. Our goal was inclusion, and showing we can all make a meaningful difference.
- Keep it positive: It can be hard to talk about environmental destruction while keeping it positive, and inevitably falling into sustainability fatigue. We focused on fun, positive and personally beneficial behaviour changes, making the sessions insightful and interactive.
- Keep it safe: While no one can reasonably deny the impact of climate change, our knowledge of how to combat it and our understanding of our personal responsibility may vary. We made sure to keep a safe and respectful environment, creating an opportunity for everyone to feel safe and to learn from each other.
- Keep politics out of the conversation: While how you vote may be one of the most impactful ways of protecting our planet, ultimately to stay in our lane and keep the conversations inclusive, safe and fun for everyone, we were careful to stick to the facts and keep politics out.
- Make it measurable: We asked our team to complete a survey on how far along they are in their sustainability journey on a variety of topics. As we continue these conversations and learnings throughout the year, we will then be able to survey our team again and (hopefully!) show real impact. Our ‘Pledge Tree’ is also full of quantifiable goals, that we can look back on to show our impact.
If you’re seeking ESG communication experts to engage employees with sustainability communications, look no further. Talk to us; let’s make sustainability a focal point in your workplace conversations.