Podcasting continues to grow as a medium. “Big Radio”, lol, continues to misunderstand this particular form of content. The older forms of media had their structures, systems and ways of doing things. The newer media do not need to utilise these. As the landscape continues to evolve, niches for disability advocacy organisations are proliferating. In this episode, we’ll explore the current trends in podcasting and discuss how advocacy organisations can leverage these opportunities to further their missions.
A Growing Audience and Expanding Genres
Whilst creators were quick to jump on the podcasting bandwagon, audience growth has been a lagging indicator. However we’ve reached a point where we no longer need to explain 1, what a podcast is and 2, why individuals should listen to them. The current major growth area is for those who are yet to realise the benefits a podcast can bring.
As I mentioned above, “Big Radio” has attempted to enter the field with all their ancillary attachments. Things like soundproof studios, engineers, production assistants, executive producers, marketing departments and most dangerously of all, an advertising model for revenue. Given the huge number of people involved and current advertising technology, it’s not surprising that ventures based on this radio model are failing. This leads to opinion pieces about the death of podcasting. Neither of these is correct. The wrong model, too many people needing a cut of the revenue, the idea that audiences are a commodity for sale to the highest bidder and the dynamic ad insertion technology all point to this radio model as being as relevant as a newspaper relying on its classified section to fund the paper. The really horrific thing for organisations following this model is the dynamic ad inserters can and do track when their ads are skipped by listeners. Skipped ads are not included in the stats for payments to the shows.
The effect of this is threefold. One, the integrity of the show is compromised by the adverts. They interrupt the narrative flow, break connections with the listeners and are, from where I listen, rarely relevant. Secondly, the budgeted funding from the adverts is reduced if not actually collapsing. Thirdly, the number of adverts is constantly increasing to meet the missing funding. A feedback system leading to the ridiculous situation of two to three minutes of adverts at the start of an episode, once or twice an episode and this leads to more skipping and annoyance for the listeners. It’s reached the ludicrous state where an update episode of the same seven minutes as opposed to the usual hour long show will still have three to four minutes of adverts.
What a podcast can actually do and how to employ one for the benefit of your service, your listeners and potential clients relies upon a different mindset. One not tied to legacy media attitudes and structures.
What a podcast can actually do for your service is build authority, intimacy and carve out a space in the marketplace that is yours alone.
Your Purpose
Your purpose will determine your content strategy. Purpose can be broken down into a few themes.
- Building a body of work
- Announcing whom you are and what you do
- Highlighting your successes through your people
Building A Body Of Work
With a body work behind you, resources are available for a variety of purposes. Things like streaming lining the onboarding process, audio versions of policies and protocols, success stories as evidence of results for donors and/or funding bodies and as a reflection of your service’s ethos. Not all of these will be publicly available, policies and protocol, onboarding and so on could be kept on a private feed for the appropriate people to hear. On the other hand they may well be available on an open feed if they serve your purposes of openness and transparency.
Another intangible effect of a body of work is a growth in the authority of your service. The sheer weight of material shows commitment to a process, the longevity of your service and the many times you have made a difference to the world.
Announcing whom you are and what you do
In the initial stages, your podcast reaches out to a new cohort of individuals and organisations who had either a passing knowledge of your service’s work or did not know you even existed. This causes ripple effects of recognition and begins the establishment of your authority in the sector.
Beginnings are as important as endings but to reach the latter you have to jump into the former. Once you start your service’s podcast, opportunities to display your way of doing things, the things you actually do and the benefits you bring will jump into your field of vision. Until you start the process, many of these things remain hidden or in the periphery of your marketing focus.
Highlighting your successes through your people
This could be the backbone of your show. People connect with the stories of other people. These stories highlight how you make the people you help the heroes in their own stories as you guide them, Gandaff like, through the minefields of your service’s particular advocacy focus. Things like navigating the NDIS, negotiating with other service providers and interacting with Commonwealth departments would all be good examples for episodes or even ten episode series if you wanted to go deep into the weeds.
Niches
The possibilities within specific niches, disability advocacy, for instance, are many. From general advice on accessing publicly funded services, to the journeys of individuals through the system and or through their lives and most things in between, is a niche your advocacy service could easily fill. As the Tag Line for JMPS is “Giving the Unheard a Voice” podcasting also provides stories and examples of those who have had the courage to step into a public setting and tell their stories, giving a pathway to those not yet confident in their own voices.
An example of this is episode 6 of the Disability Sunflower Stories podcast from Kin Advocacy in Osborne Park, Perth, WA entitled Dani’s story. She speaks powerfully of her journey, through the crises of life to where she is now. This is an interview style episode and is followed in the feed by a bonus episode: Dani in her own words which is a monolog version of the same story but has a different energy to the first. I would recommend having a listen both because Dani’s story is powerful and as an example of what can be done with a podcast by an advocacy service.
The Rise of Niche Podcasting
As foreshadowed above, podcasting is a narrowcasting medium. The more tightly we can focus our show the more likely we are to find our listeners. This can be taken to extremes, obviously and there is a point of diminishing returns. So a show that targeted, say, left handed polo cross players who only ride white horses would be past the point of sensible niching. For disability advocacy organisations, focusing on your niche can help you connect with the people you’re trying to reach. “But what’s my niche?” is a question that arises. For advocacy services, I would bet large sums of monopoly money that it’s in your vision and or mission statements. Those are the things, people, causes you wish to influence and that’s a good working definition of a podcasting niche. The answer is often hiding in plain sight.
Conclusion
Podcasting offers an opportunity for disability advocacy organisations to amplify their message, connect with a targeted audience and drive change. By understanding the current trends in podcasting and first defining then serving their niche, opportunities exist for advocacy services to amplify their effect in their chosen field of changemaking.
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!
LINKS
Dani’s Story: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-6-danis-story/id1655776843?i=1000621322773