Podcasts are an effective tool to easily engage with a diverse audience of healthcare consumers. Men and women of various ages actively download or listen live to podcasts, and they want relevant, unique content to entertain and educate them on the go. In 2016, 64 percent of people age 12 and older who listened to podcasts did so most often on a mobile device, compared to 34 percent who primarily listened on a computer, according to data from Pew Research Center.
The Perficient team has compiled a few general best podcasting practices to help you best showcase the personalities and expertise of your organization’s doctors, nurses, and healthcare leaders. Use these high-level tips as a starting place for your podcast project:
- Keep the topics relevant: A podcast should not be a sales pitch or entirely about an organizational campaign or initiative. Rather, the podcast should focus on audience-centric topics.
- Record in person whenever possible. Podcasts recorded in person generally have much better audio quality and conversational flow than those recorded over the phone. In-person interviewing allows the host and subject matter expert to develop a rapport and work together to eliminate distractions and background noises that could affect audio quality.
- Shorter isn’t always better: The sweet spot for podcasts is 30 to 45 minutes, and we typically don’t recommend going shorter than 10 minutes. Make the recording as long or as short as necessary to tell the story without rambling, repetition, or excessive dead air or filler music.
Podcast distribution with new tech or channels you already use
If you want to host your podcast on your website, you might consider investing in an embedded track audio player that allows downloads of your podcasts and can be incorporated into an existing page on your site. Companies such as Libsyn specialize in creating these players, or your development team might have ideas for building your own.
But you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to kick off a podcast program. You can use your organization’s current content marketing distribution channels to share your podcasts.
- Blog: You can embed audio files in many blog platforms, much like you would a video. Aside from that, you also can include inline or callout links to the podcasts in blog articles as “listen now” or “related listening” features.
- E-newsletter: Once your podcasts are live, include a link to where they live on your site as well as any podcast apps to which you subscribe.
- Podcast apps: Podcast or music apps are effective for granting easy access to your podcasts. A few our clients and staff have used include iHeartRadio, iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.
- Social media: Podcasts can be shared on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more. You can either upload the audio natively depending on the file size/length, or publish it on your site and direct your audience to the blog via organic or sponsored posts.
Though podcasting might take a little more planning and editing than traditional content marketing strategies in the beginning, it’s an engaging way to connect with your audience and showcase the expertise of your doctors, nurses, and healthcare leaders. We’re ready when you are. Contact us to get started on your healthcare podcast project today.
