We’re now about 18 months into our very own podcast, Cogcast. We sat down with the co-creators and hosts, who are both former journalists working in our New York office.
We discussed the process of creating and maintaining a show and what it has taught them about where exactly a podcast should sit inside an overall marketing strategy.
What is Cogcast? How do you describe it?
Cogcast is Cognito’s podcast where we speak with reporters and media pros on everything happening in the world of journalism and PR. We often hear from our clients that they would like to know more about the inner workings of journalism: How reporters decide on story ideas, which pitches they respond to, and who they end up quoting. As two former journalists, we have insider insight but given how quickly and continuously the media landscape evolves, the main driver for why we started this podcast was to invite reporters to share what it’s like working in media today – and of course, keep up to date ourselves on how PR can best support them.
Our podcast is not restricted to just journalists though; Cognito’s own experts, our clients and outside PR and comms pros are always welcome to add valuable perspective on how they’re adapting to the media landscape and running successful marketing programs.
How do you measure success? Is it downloads or do you look at other measurements?
For all podcasts, measurable metrics are important, so we do have tools that tell us about listenership and social media engagement across all channels of distribution. That’s certainly one way we measure success from month to month. We’ve also built up our credibility and reputation over the past 18 months since inception and now secure interest with reporters at publications that are important to Cognito’s clients, including Reuters, Business Insider, The Verge and Financial Planning, to name a few. That is huge measure of success for us to be a trusted platform that continues to host high-caliber experts, eager to share their perspectives with us.
We’re also happy to brag that Cogcast won a Gold Marcomm award last year and a Gold AVA Digital award this year. The entire team works hard to make sure we’re constantly producing a quality platform.
What have you learned about the ideal length of a podcast? Why does that work for your piece?
We have to be realistic about the length of time a listener will tune in to hear advice and insight on comms and marketing – which is about 20 minutes max. So we try to keep that rule of thumb with Cogcast episodes, to avoid listeners tuning out. Everyone is busy and there are so many podcasts out there. We focus on engaging content that is just long enough for listeners to walk away with something interesting and not too long that they feel they’ve wasted time – or worse, don’t tune back in again.
If you go back and look at some of the earliest episodes, what would you change now?
Our earliest episodes sounded scripted, because they were. As we’ve found our footing and started to feel more comfortable, we like to think our episodes have evolved into more natural and engaging conversations. We’ve also experimented with how we’re presenting podcasts on social media, through audio gram promos and posts that summarize the main points for readers who might not have the time to listen to episodes.
As we have gotten more comfortable too, one thing we remembered from our reporter days is that the best conversations occur when both parties want to be there and are enjoying themselves. Who cares if we mess up or trip over our words, that’s what editing is for. Are we having fun and learning? That’s what counts and will come across to the listeners.
How big of a commitment is a podcast? How long do you spend on each issue?
Each episode is different. Some require heavier lifting than others. For example, sometimes we’ll go to coffee with potential guests to tell them about the podcast before we secure the interview. Usually it takes a couple of hours to do the research, prep the questions, communicate back and forth with guests and do the recording. We then pass off the raw footage and transcription work to a podcast editor and content creator we work with. It takes us another hour or so to do transcriptions, social media copy and audio grams etc. We have a team of about three others helping us, so it’s a team effort!
What can podcasts do that other related media – such as say, a video or a blog posts can’t?
Podcasts offer maybe the most accessible form of information consumption, it’s a hands and eyes free-commitment, unlike videos and blogs. Like most people, we listen to podcasts while getting ready for work in the morning, while on the subway and doing things like getting your nails done because it allows for multitasking.
For most people, audio is a welcome change from the demands of reading during a typical workday, from emails to blogs and newsletters. Podcasts tend to be a faster way to consume information that’s not just about one article or podcast but can cover a stretch of different angles. Podcasts are also relatively cheap to produce compared to other media, like videos, while still achieving engagement among audiences.
How are people accessing the podcast? Is this an important consideration?
Most people find our podcasts when we promote it on social media. Most clicks to our episodes originate on LinkedIn and X, where most of our audience resides. You can listen to Cogcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Vanja Lakic and Larissa Padden are based in Cognito’s New York office.
