The Power of Podcasting: Why Your Advocacy Organization Needs a Voice
Facebook, Insta, TikTok and X all provide a type of publicity for your service but your post’s survivability is short term at best on these platforms. Longer form content, blogs and videos, require the consumer to stop what they’re doing and focus their attention on the material.
Podcasts are the only form of media almost inadvertently designed to be consumed “on the go”. The human voice interacts with people in a different way from the other forms of media.
The voice connects with ancient parts of our brains. Connecting us all back to the epics of storytelling. From “The Journey to The West” from China, through “A 1001 Nights” of Arabia to the Epic of Gilgamesh in Fertile Crescent and the Iliad and Odyssey of the Greeks to tales of Cuchulain and Arthur, we have, as a species, evolved to connect through the spoken word. We can tell much through the voice, the nuance, the pacing, the tone and pitch all give clues to us about the speaker. It is an intimate form of communication.
Space in Podcasting
We can find statistics like, there are over 3 million podcasts and more than 48 million episodes available globally. The reality is a little more promising for the new entrant. Active podcasts, according to The Feed from Libsyn, a podcast hosting company, comes in around 300,000 to 400,000 depending on the way active is defined. The point is, we are 20 years into podcasting and there are less than 500,000 active shows. Imagine if your service had jumped into Youtubing when there were less than 500,000 active producers. Ten years ago was the perfect time to start your show, now is the second best.
The appeal of podcasts lies in their convenience and accessibility; listeners can tune in while commuting, exercising or even working. This flexibility ensures individuals listen when they want to. In effect, with a podcast, you speak to everyone, all at once, one at a time. In doing so the “one at a time” aspect of the medium is where intimacy and authority is built. Not surprisingly, intimacy takes time to develop with listeners. Perhaps not as much time as you would expect, but rarely in the first listen.
The Unique Benefits of Podcasting for Advocacy
Podcasting offers several unique benefits that make it particularly effective for advocacy work. These benefits go beyond mere reach and tap into the very essence of what makes advocacy successful: storytelling, engagement and community building.
Reach and Accessibility
One of the most significant advantages of podcasting is its unparalleled reach. Those with web connections, obviously but that number continues to rise each year too. Widespread availability ensures advocacy organisations can reach their target audience whether defined by demographics, geographies or psychographics.
Deep Engagement
Unlike other forms of content that are often consumed passively or in brief bursts, podcasts encourage a more engaged form of listening. Podcast listeners tend to be highly attentive and invested in the content they consume. This deeper level of engagement is a powerful tool for advocacy organisations, as it allows them to delve into complex issues, explore nuanced perspectives and present in-depth stories that may not be possible in shorter formats of social media posts.
As discussed, podcasts foster a sense of intimacy between the host and the listener. The act of listening to someone’s voice creates a personal connection, making the message more relatable and impactful. For advocacy organisations, this personal touch can be the difference between a message that is heard and one that is truly understood.
Storytelling and Narrative Control
Your people are your stories. With either the people you serve or your staff, the opportunity to construct narratives around your work ensures stories worth listening to. Storytelling, whilst an innate human activity, is also as much a science as it is an art. Learning storytelling structures, techniques and formats adds to your capacity to bring about change in the world. An example of this is the series of episodes JMPS produced for Kin Advocacy (https://jmps.au/kin/). Each person’s story is different. The basic format is the interview but some episodes come with bonus material in the first person. A listen to these episodes will illustrate how the same story can be told in different ways and for different lengths of episode.
Unlike other media formats that may require content to be edited down to fit time constraints, podcasts offer the freedom to explore stories in greater depth. This narrative control enables advocacy organisations to present their message in its entirety, without the risk of it being diluted or misinterpreted.
Getting Started with Podcasting
For an advocacy service considering podcasting, the process of getting started is less complicated than it might at first seem. Here at JMPS we can either guide you through the process or do the work for you. Using the four step JMPS system, your show can be up and running and building your body of work, reaching potential clients and establishing your authority in the sector in very little time.
Conclusion
In a world where advocacy organisations are competing for attention in an overcrowded digital space, podcasting offers a one on one approach to connection with your people, your tribe. By giving your organisation a voice through podcasting, you not only amplify your message but also create a lasting impact that can drive meaningful change.
If you’re thinking about or even ready to start your service’s podcast, email me: jon@jmps.au link in the show notes and we can have a chat. I work on a monthly retainer basis and you receive 4 episodes a month, uploaded to a host, clips for use in socials, help with local recordings where you are and all this for A$500 a month on a twelve month contract.
Until next episode, thanks for listening!