When it comes to a newer medium such as podcasting, it may be difficult to understand exactly how creators can leverage the format for brand visibility. In conversation at the Variety Studio, presented by Canva at Advertising Week, Conal Byrne, Chief Executive Officer at iHeartMedia, and Jay Shetty, iHeartMedia podcast show host of “On Purpose with Jay Shetty,” discussed the strengths of podcasting and how creators can produce personalized content with widespread appeal.
For Shetty, podcasting through an audio company like iHeartMedia, is vastly different from filming a short video to post on TikTok or another brevity-focused platform. Longer-form narrative storytelling provides more freedom for the creator. It’s also comparatively more “intimate” given the extended amount of time listeners spend with the show host.
“What I found so fascinating about podcasting as a medium is I feel like people who listen to me every day or every week, I feel like that person actually understands me in a deeper way,” said Shetty. “They understand my perspective. They know me to a certain degree in a way you couldn’t get through a 15-second clip or a 60-second clip. For me, that’s been really powerful.”
According to Byrne, the podcast industry is progressing quickly and benefits from its diversity of experiences as such a novel industry.
“No one started out their career making podcasts, in this medium. Everybody is coming from some other job they had, whether they were in film or banking,” Byrne said. “It makes creative brainstorms really interesting. You have all these different perspectives piling onto what is still a relatively new format.”
As for increasing the media value of one’s podcast, Shetty expressed the importance of long-term reach and regularly creating content to establish one’s brand, rather than just starting big and fizzling out.
“Consistency is what created intimacy and brand in anything,” Shetty stated. “Sometimes you want to start with this incredible moment and momentum, and I actually think consistency is far more of the magic to podcasting, [which is about] are you showing up for your community every single day or every single week?”
