Just a few years ago few people knew what a podcast was.
Today, podcasting is one of the fastest growing content platforms in the world.
One of the appeals for listeners with podcasts is the ability to listen while doing other things: driving, working, walking, cooking, exercising, etc.
But video and text still have their place. And it’s certainly possible to integrate two or three of the content forms (video, audio and text) into a content marketing strategy.
Let’s focus on blogging and podcasting for this post and a few ways you can integrate the two to offer the best product for your target audience.
1. Branding
To integrate means to bring together to form a whole. With that idea in mind you’re looking for a way to bring the strategies of your blogging and podcasting together. Now, a strategy usually has the same goal. In business, the end goal is always to get more customers. With content marketing, it’s a bit indirect as far as getting customers. Rarely will someone read a blog post or listen to a podcast and buy as their next step.
That’s because people are only in buying mode about 3% of the time. Therefore, the goal with content marketing is branding. Getting more people to know about you, talk about you, think about you, etc. so that when people are in buying mode they seek you out.
If that’s the goal for podcasting and blogging then you should naturally create content for each that meshes well with the other, but there are a few ways to go about it.
2. Blog First, Podcast Second
The next two items depend on you, your team or the people you outsource and how they best create content. The deciding factor for how you create content should be quantity and efficiency and even those two relate well to each other.
For example, for some people it takes 3-5 hours to create a 600-word blog post. For others it takes an hour. Some simply don’t like writing and therefore they avoid and procrastinate and it’s unlikely that they will be efficient or able to create consistent quantity.
But let’s say that you’re drawn to writing. Or that someone on your team is or that someone you hire is. Then it makes sense to blog first and podcast second.
In this case, you do your topic brainstorming, researching, writing and publishing with the blog post first. Then you simply read or have someone read the post to create a podcast episode.
3. Podcast First, Blog Second
But let’s say that you’re more drawn to creating podcast episodes. This works fine as well and many people do it this way. You can brainstorm the topics, do the research, record, edit and publish the podcast first. Then you can transcribe or create a blog post from the podcast. You could even hire someone to do that part for you if you don’t like writing.
In either case the result is that you’re creating similar content for different audiences. Those that prefer text and those that prefer audio. You’re creating good content for more people with just a little added effort.
4. Separate Entitles
Now, another way to approach it and still integrate the two is to separate the creation. This would mean that you create both yourself or one person on your team does the podcasting and another does the blogging.
Brainstorming is separate. Creating is separate. Publishing and promotion are separate.
The integration still comes in from the branding. You’re looking to attract the same type of people. You’re looking to build the recognition and reputation of your brand. Some topics will be similar. There can still be crossover. You’re just allowing the two channels to operate independently.
Final Thoughts
There is a land rush with the content world today. For brands to really take full advantage they should be creating a lot of content. People want as much content as possible. If we could, for example, we would watch a new episode of Stranger Things every day.
If you’re serious about content marketing then blogging and podcasting should both be strategies. You can use one to fuel the other or you can create the separating. Either way, in five to ten years you’re going to look back at this time and wonder if you missed out on the opportunity.