Tuesday 30th August: How four publishers are using podcasts to enhance their brands

August 30, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Chris.

Launching a podcast can be an intimidating prospect for publishers. Editorial resources, concepts and marketing strategies all need to be carefully thought through to ensure the product resonates with listeners. But if done well, podcasts can not only enhance a brand’s existing content offering; it can bring in a whole new audience hungry for more.

Ahead of the Publisher Podcast Summit on October 5th, we asked four of the speakers what opportunities audio had opened up for them. BuzzFeed’s Ada Enechi, The Telegraph’s Cara McGoogan, Women’s Running’s Esther Newman and Tortoise’s Alice Sandelson explain how they’ve benefited from the podcast boom and what it’s added to their brands.

My favourite piece of wisdom is from Esther Newman who explained to us that podcasts "made us understand that adding a podcast (or any channel) to your output doesn't necessarily grow your existing audience. It provides you with a new one, which needs individual nurturing."

The Chicago Tribune's Kurt Gessler is sharing the results of an experiment in shutting off Google AMP. It's an interesting data-led read - and is something of a sequel to a few similar studies from earlier in the year which found a similar lack of impact.

You can get desensitised to news of journalists getting laid off. It happens with such regularity that after a while it becomes almost background noise. But we shouldn't look away; we should instead be staring directly at the impact this will have on the ability of journalism to hold the powerful to account - and finding ways to compensate for the losses.

I'm halfway through an article for the analysis section of the Media Voices site about how the podcasting game is YouTube's to lose. This latest news - that Twitter will start recommending and streaming podcasts directly to users - isn't going to drastically alter the direction of the piece, but it is another data point that suggests other tech companies are pressing the accelerator slightly faster than YouTube in terms of podcasts.

We’ve been testing a number of podcast editing tools recently and have settled for Hindenburg, a professional-grade audio editing system made for simplicity, speed and agility. It’s built for podcasts and audio storytelling, with lots of features like auto levelling which help streamline the process. But don’t take our word for it: try it out for yourself! This link will get you an extended three month trial of Hindenburg PRO for business.

[#Ad, but genuinely, we love Hindenburg]

Podcast throwback:

Hannah Robathan, co-founder of Shado, told us about the realities of publishing a print magazine and online platform that gives people the space to tell their own stories. We spoke about their frustration with the mainstream media, what activism means and what success looks like for Shado.

Here at Media Voices we're constantly bouncing between projects, from our reports to the podcast to the Summit production. We know that you understand what that's like - so if you feel like kicking us a few quid to keep us in coffee and tea, please do!