Advances In Digital Marketing For Podcast Essay.

Strengths and weaknesses of the podcast format

Discuss about the Advances in Digital Marketing for Podcast Format.

This course work aims to discuss the advances and opportunities that the digital marketing can create in this world of fast growing technology. There are various strengths and weaknesses of the podcast format that help the podcast creators to gain scopes for advancement. Moreover, there are several strategies which may be followed for enhancing the listeners or audience involvement with the presentation. As podcasts continue to grow in popularity, they can be a tool to use to advocate for the promotion of the centre (Vasilopoulos et al. 2015). The coursework finally concludes with the critical evaluation of the recommendations that the creators have used to repurposing the contents and achieve perfect conversion goals.

Podcast is a sequence of digital media files that are either digital video or audio, mainly episodic, program driven and downloadable. It is mainly applicable with the particular theme or a host. It is convenient and reaches via an automated feed with the computer software. RSS has the similar nature of those of podcast that allow the subscribers for subscribe to the sets of feeds for viewing syndicated the website contents. The format that is used for podcasting, mainly RSS 2.0 with enclosures. The enclosures refer to all binary (non-text) downloads. The lists of all audio and video files associated with the given series can be maintained particularly on the server of the distributor as web feed. The listener as well as viewer employs a special client application software termed as pod catcher. It can access that web feed of the distributor, check for updates then download all the new files in that series (Shah, Cappella and Neuman 2015). There are numerous strengths and weaknesses of this podcasting facility.

• Convenience: iPod can play podcast files hence the users can view as well as listen to their favourite files anytime and anywhere. For doing this they do not need to sit before their computers for reviewing their files. Podcasting is very much valuable for the selected age groups where the students can follow up the important information in order to complete understanding of their work ideas or lessons. They can learn various modalities beyond their selected studies. These audio and video files can aid or supplement for studying. These files can be easily and inexpensively created as well as downloaded in any of the websites. Hence the lectures or presentation can be accessed at any time offering supple learning options.
• Easily reachable: materials such as presentation and transcripts consisting any audio and video files, needs to be fully accessible. Editing as well as uploading of the high-quality files may be time consuming. Larger files need storm broad band connections creating worse situation for the slow dial up connection users. On the other hand, the podcasting can be accessible for any kind of users just making sure that they have mp3 player or iPods.
• Easy to create: creating podcast is very easy. The users only need a computer or even a smartphone. Where there will be a software for recording the presentation. The users also need a connection for uploading it in the internet (Paterson et al 2015). It is very inexpensive that the selected age group can easily make it. There are multiple sites that can help the users to reach a wide range of audience. The users can buy software packages in order to edit the podcasts, add desired sound effects and save them for future use.

• Not searchable: podcasts are not easily searchable. Despite the fact that there are numerous search engines available for identifying the desired podcast but it sometimes become impossible to directly search one particular audio file.
• Time consuming: podcasting is used by the professors to both provide and receive information for the students. However, the main disadvantage of this kind of facility is that the professors need to invest huge time to find and check the students’ files because web is a public place as well as vast. Larger files will be needing more time for the professors to check.
• Limited audience: podcasting needs computer or smartphone along with high speed data connection. Many of the students do not have access in the medium. Moreover, the people who prefer reading something to listing or watch, podcasting is of no use to them.
• loss of control: unlike any other digital mediums, podcasts are quite easy to share. Hence the creators of the podcasts need to take steps for protecting their files against unauthorised file copying and sharing (Koo, Chung and Kim 2015). The materials can contain audios and videos for personal study which may be accessed by other students if not copyrighted.
• Distraction: allowing the usage of iPod in the universities can be a major reason of poor result or productivity due to distraction the segmented age cohort of 22 and 30 years with iPods can be side-tracked easily and listen to their favourite music or watch videos instead of doing actual works.

• Podcast always provides scopes for bringing back the listeners to the site’s community. As well as extending the conversation. The creators can grab the opportunity to ask for giving their feedbacks about the series which will help them to increase engagements that the creator cannot have through one of emails.
• The podcast makers can build a good relationship with the listeners then can send promotional contents via personal emails (Merhi 2015). Here they can engage in detailed ideas for future podcasts or to review the previous podcasts for improving the quality.
• In increasing consumer engagement, the podcast format can have a video transcription or blog written on that particular subject about which the podcast ids actually made (Lin et al. 2016). It will serve more people and engage them to remain connected with the podcast builders.
• The podcasts can be used for campaigning for which the loyalty between the creator and the listener is essential. Through proper application of presentation, the podcast builders will have a strong group of followers who will act of the suggestions of the maker.

Repurposing the vlog is necessary for reaching more people as well as the promotion of the university. As the vlog has disclosed the happy and positive issues that the students feel in the university, the visual effect that the vlog aims to deliver can be used to attract more people to share their perception (Alam et al. 2016). This vlog focuses purely on the target audience who are mainly the international students but if repurposed, this vlog can have more engaging podcast and achieve the objective of repurposing. As mentioned before the video podcast have been created for one particular segment of audience hence restructuring the video content into an audio will not be acceptable for the audience but turning it into a blog post can be good enough to reach more people. According to Nwosu et al. (2017), the vlog has a story telling nature hence transforming it into a written blog will be reaching both the native and the international students of the university. In addition to this, the story presented in the vlog, can be delivered through the transcription. Here the content will be transcript which will have more audience penetration. Beside this, this vlog can be used for making a series later by creating more vlog like this. They can be focussing on the same issue or different according to the response of the listeners. The chief aim is the gain more audience engagements, hence the creators needs to take more innovative steps to gain popularity.

Using the podcast format in consumer engagement

For reaching more audience and gain popularities some steps are to be followed these are-

• Create High-Value Show Notes for SEO, Links, and Sharing by using Show Notes to rank on Google. The creators can make show notes highly shareable in order to get featured.
• Repurposing the episodes to promote on other platforms like YouTube
• Sound cloud can be used to host the podcast
• Making new episodes for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest
• featuring guests with an audience will attract more audience
• promoting podcast is to go on other podcasts in same niche
• submitting episodes to aggregators and message boards so that it can be promoted to other audiences, open to interesting videos, articles, podcasts and other media.
• asking for reviews to increase ranking which may be done through running a giveaway and building email lists to get reviews (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014).

Through this podcast medium the creators can connect with their audience and use more casual tones (Brust, Cooke and Yeung 2015). This sense of connection as well as comfort allow the listeners to ask many questions hence the creator can analyse or discuss the sections that he had skipped beforehand. This will lead to personal as well as organisational success. The perfect delivery of the perception which the podcast makers desire to convey through their presentations, will effectively increase the dependence of the listeners because through this medium, they will have more answers to be described hence remain connected to get more productions which will build relationship and bring fame. This will motivate to publish next series of podcast.

Conclusion:

Therefore, it can be concluded that podcast is one of the most important medium which has been built for one particular segment of the students of the university. Despite the fact that there are numerous drawbacks of this medium, its positive application cannot be avoided. Like all other social media platforms, this podcast can be used to have a positive effect on the target audience. For this reason, listener engagement is quite essential. Engaging with audience is a key for every type of successful content marketing. Podcasts allow the creators to facilitate both on-air and off-air engagement with the listeners. The podcast builders will be finding various new ways for connecting with the audience which is vital for keeping the brand relevant as well as valuable.

References:

Alam, F., Boet, S., Piquette, D., Lai, A., Perkes, C.P. and LeBlanc, V.R., 2016. E-learning optimization: the relative and combined effects of mental practice and modeling on enhanced podcast-based learning—a randomized controlled trial. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 21(4), pp.789-802.

Brust, T., Cooke, L. and Yeung, M., 2015. A Randomized-Controlled Trial Comparing Efficacy and User Satisfaction of Audio Podcasts Versus a Traditional Lecture on Multiple Sclerosis in Family Medicine Resident Education (P4. 195). Neurology, 84(14 Supplement), pp.P4-195.

Koo, C., Chung, N. and Kim, D.J., 2015. How do social media transform politics? The role of a podcast,‘Naneun Ggomsuda’in South Korea. Information Development, 31(5), pp.421-434.

Lin, M., Joshi, N., Grock, A., Swaminathan, A., Morley, E.J., Branzetti, J., Taira, T., Ankel, F. and Yarris, L.M., 2016. Approved instructional resources series: a national initiative to identify quality emergency medicine blog and podcast content for resident education. Journal of graduate medical education, 8(2), pp.219-225.

Merhi, M.I., 2015. Factors influencing higher education students to adopt podcast: An empirical study. Computers & Education, 83, pp.32-43.

Nwosu, A.C., Monnery, D., Reid, V.L. and Chapman, L., 2017. Use of podcast technology to facilitate education, communication and dissemination in palliative care: the development of the AmiPal podcast. BMJ supportive & palliative care, 7(2), pp.212-217.

Paterson, Q.S., Thoma, B., Milne, W.K., Lin, M. and Chan, T.M., 2015. A systematic review and qualitative analysis to determine quality indicators for health professions education blogs and podcasts. Journal of graduate medical education, 7(4), pp.549-554.

Shah, D.V., Cappella, J.N. and Neuman, W.R., 2015. Big data, digital media, and computational social science: Possibilities and perils. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 659(1), pp.6-13.

Vasilopoulos, T., Chau, D.F., Bensalem-Owen, M., Cibula, J.E. and Fahy, B.G., 2015. Prior podcast experience moderates improvement in electroencephalography evaluation after educational podcast module. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 121(3), pp.791-797.

Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.