What a Podcasting Platform Offers That Your LMS or Intranet Doesn’t for Delivering Podcasts to Employees

Your company might already be creating podcasts for your employees or be in the process of planning. If you’re still exploring the value of private podcasts for your company, you can read success stories, ways they can be used, and best practices here.

We often hear companies creating podcasts and using their intranet or LMS to share them with employees. Why not? It’s a tool you already have at hand. However, we have worked with a lot of companies who have seen why that is not their best option for podcasting, at least by itself. It sometimes works as a place to start, but as you ramp up your podcasting efforts, there are some significant benefits to using a dedicated podcasting platform like Podbean Enterprise.

Optimizing Podcast Accessibility and Employee User Experience

One of the main benefits of delivering corporate content to employees via podcasts is accessibility and convenience. Employees can listen on-the-go, anytime and anywhere whether online or not. For audio podcasts, in particular, they aren’t tied to viewing a screen or further wearing out their eyes. In many ways, audio provides a rich experience in which the employee can really focus on the messaging. They not only take in the words, but tone of voice and other audio cues that make the content feel more intimate, and thus memorable. However, it is important to evaluate how you deliver podcasts to take advantage of these benefits.

Accessibility

Using a podcast app, like Podbean Pro, gives employees a “true podcast listening experience”. They are probably already podcast listeners and when you say you are creating corporate podcasts, they have certain expectations. 

As shared by Podbean client, VMware, this is often the motivation for companies seeking a podcasting platform. VMware found that their LMS did not have a good offline playback experience, necessary for their traveling staff to be able to catch up on content and maximize their efficiency. Their podcasts have become one of their primary communication and training tools now, expanding to many different uses. One of the primary reasons for their high engagement is the ease of accessibility.

User Experience

Furthermore, a podcast app is designed specifically for audio listening. It optimizes the listening experience with features like background player, playlists, and listening controls. The Podbean Pro app is modeled after Podbean’s popular podcast app, with years of development and iteration behind its features. With Podbean Pro (or white label apps using the same structure), you benefit from this while getting a branded, professional look and feel for your podcasts, access control, and more. When users log in, they see your organization page and get the selected content directly. Now, they can listen to company podcasts just like they would their favorite personal shows.

This also means the podcasts are not only accessible and easy to consume, but employees know just where to go to get what they need. With app notifications, they can instantly be notified when new podcasts are published. Playlists let them organize the content in ways that make sense for them, such as saving all episodes on a certain subject or creating a personal development playlist for areas they hope to upskill. The company admins can also create such playlists and share them. We’ve seen many companies use this to create an onboarding playlist for new joiners, increasing their company knowledge and connectivity so they can hit the ground running.

Security

Of course, organizations can’t trade off security for ease and accessibility. You want to keep internal messaging where it belongs. This is why many companies first think of using their intranet solely to deliver podcasts. However, with a platform like Podbean, you don’t have to sacrifice your employees’ experience for security. Our platform is built around delivering content securely, via login versus “private feeds” or other methods that, while they may be convenient, have security pitfalls.

Most Podbean business customers use our SSO login integration, which means 1. Employees don’t have to create a new login, remember more passwords, etc. and 2. Your existing authentication provider acts as the gateway to the content, ensuring the same security that you have for everything you share internally. A podcasting platform like Podbean can offer the best possible blend of security and convenience.

Measurement

Understanding the success of your podcasting program is probably one of the top reasons to use a true podcasting platform to deliver your private podcasts. We all know the importance of measuring results. Unfortunately, typical website analytics won’t provide the detailed insight that will help you measure what’s working and improve your podcasts. 

Podbean offers an array of podcast statistics and a variety of charts to understand the data, Perhaps most importantly, our User Engagement Intel lets you drill down into consumption and engagement. You can view second-by-second episode listening patterns. So, for example, you may discover that there are certain portions employees are tending to skip. This may help you revamp that content or cut out something that isn’t working. You may find out shorter episodes perform better or that employees almost always stick around for the intriguing question you ask at the end of each interview.

Additionally, Podbean can provide individual listening data. Therefore, you can track individual podcast consumption and engagement for compliance, training and employee programs or incentives. All data is exportable and we can help you integrate this into your existing systems (see more below).

Integration with Your Systems

The question that might come up once you’ve understood some of the benefits to using a podcasting platform is, “But how will it work with our existing LMS, intranet, etc.?” This is something Podbean has a lot of experience with and we can help determine what solution will best meet your needs. 

Some companies don’t do any formal integration, but simply use Podbean as their standalone podcast solution. They have all the tools to manage and distribute their podcasts and can get all the data they need. Podbean has spent time developing the best possible tools and also handles the storage and bandwidth, so the podcasting program doesn’t stress company/system resources. Due to the simple user interface, Podbean doesn’t have the learning curve you may have experienced with other systems. So, you and your team can have podcasts up and running in moments. In these cases, companies might use their existing employee communications channels to promote and share the podcasts, but without needing to do any further integration. 

However, several of our clients are using the integrations below. Additionally, our developers are always here to help if your company needs something customized.

API for Listening Credits in Your LMS

If you are using podcasts for required training or wish to incentivize employees for their listening, Podbean’s API makes it simple to get all the data you need directly sent to your LMS. This allows you to use that data in whatever way you need to in your system. We have clients who do training podcasts and are therefore able to credit employees when they complete listening to those training modules. Others have used that data for employee personal development plans and reviews. You can also review the listening data Podbean’s API sends to your system to improve your content.

Embeddable Players on Your System

Another feature Podbean offers is customizable, embeddable podcast players. With a simple cut and paste of some html code, you can embed these on your internal system. While we don’t recommend this as the only way you share podcasts due to the reasons previously mentioned, it can provide another way to share content and may work well for some employees. You might display a player for a recent episode or embed a multiplayer that dynamically updates with the latest episodes as quick reference/encouragement to check out the podcasts.