One session at SIPA Annual 2019 June 3-5 in Washington, D.C., that already has my attention is How 3 Publishers Became Award-Winning Podcasters starring Joseph Coleman, director of content, Coleman Publishing, Lynn Freer, president, Spidell Publishing Inc. and Stephanie Williford, CEO, EB Medicine.
A query I will have for them is about company-wide synergy. In a recent podcasting session I attended, a local podcast producer, Blake Althen of Human Factor, spoke about the importance of synergy for companies doing podcasts.
"I feel like this is overlooked a lot," he said. "At least [with organizations I've done work for], the magazine/newsletter department might be doing their thing, the email people might be doing their thing and the events people are doing their thing, but there's not a lot of synergy. And we tried to close that gap and have done it really well.
"The magazine that comes out every week for [a show we do called] Convenience Matters has a picture of the podcast in action from a convention [where an episode was done on onsite]. And it was the podcast team sitting down with Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs. They were talking about employment because it's hard to find employment now for convenience stores. It was a triple whammy—the magazine covered it, they pumped the podcast and the podcast people pumped the magazine. So there can be a great synergy."
On Twitter, Spidell's director of editorial and California Minute podcast host Kathryn Zdan promotes the week's show. "Thank you to all of our loyal California Minute listeners!" she wrote in late January. "We'll be going on hiatus through filing season, but want to show our gratitude for over 472,000 total listens here at the end of our 3rd year. Revisit recent episodes on our podcast page >> www.caltax.com/news/podcast/."
"Returns filed near the extended due date may be processed late and this could affect which year a refund is reported in," she tweeted the previous week to promote that week's podcast. The play arrow appears right on Twitter so you can listen to the podcast without leaving Twitter.
California Minute actually runs about four minutes, is produced in-house and stays very focused. One titled Guidance on Business Meal Expense Deductions started with a push for Spidell's Federal and California Tax Update Seminars (these are in person). Then it gets right into the topic, which is in response to a tax update that had just been published. Timeliness is another great characteristic to have for B2B podcasts.
Coleman Publishing sends out daily emails, where they can promote their podcast and a weekly live show that they do. "People are busy, they're deleting emails," Bob Coleman says. "But if they have a couple seconds, they'll watch [and listen]. I just want my name in front of their face as much as possible. This is stuff they can't get anywhere else. That's our editorial philosophy. Give them specific things they can't get from the Wall Street Journal or CNBC.
"The takeaway that I would stress from the live video show we do is that we're still at a stage where video [in this area] is new, so people aren't expecting grand production. They don't need Fox Business. It's the content that matters. So what I mean is, don't be afraid to try it."
In 2017, EB Medicine kicked off their podcast, EMplify, with a big push on Facebook. "EMplify, the new #emergencymedicine podcast now available on iTunes & Google Play." Then last October they posted this: "FREE podcast! EMplify # 20 – Emergency Department Management of North American Snake Envenomations: " There are actually about 10,000 ED visits in the US for snake bites each year, and 1/3 of these involve venomous species." Listen now: http://bit.ly/2PHsjBy."
"For our [audience], emergency physicians, who are notoriously ADHD, they can't stand to sit still and watch an educational video for more than a few minutes, but they love podcasts because they can listen and learn while doing something else too," Williford said.
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Nevena Jovanovic.
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 and SIIA in 2013 as editorial director…