So everyone who is anyone is running to start a podcast… But is it too late to make an impression… Have you missed the band wagon? In this post I’m going to cover off the Pros & Cons of starting a podcast.

Pros of podcasting

Let’s start with the good points… What does podcasting have going for it? Well it’s a powerful piece of content to use. It allows you to harness storytelling, which in this day holds massive potential when it comes to nurturing your audience. But there’s more to it than that:

It’s easy to digest – People can consume a podcast, when driving to work, out for a run or cleaning the house. It doesn’t require your mandatory focus. It’s the kind of content that can be consumed alongside other tasks.

It’s easy to create – No make up required people! But beyond that it’s a low entry method of content when it comes to equipment too. All you really need is a recording device (a phone would do) and get you show hosted.

It’s less competitive – Yes, there’s still potential to get discovered here because with 2 million blog posts written every day, there’s only 700,000 active podcasts… There’s good odds that you will stand out.

It’s great for brand building – When people listen to your voice you form a deeper connection that text and image alone. So, it’s reaching places social media or blogs just can’t.

Cons of podcasting

So weighing in the downsides of podcasting and I’m guessing if you’ve got this far you’re probably wondering whether you should do a podcast, or do a blog of YouTube channel instead. Well here’s some things you should know about podcasting:

It’s lack of discoverability – As it stands, Google isn’t taking audio into consideration as a ranking factor in search results. So when it comes to you showing up as a direct result of someone looking for a solution to their problem… Your show isn’t going to rank great Vs a blog or a video.

Not easy to skim – It might be easy to digest, but if people are looking to solve a problem… They want a quick answer. You can skim a blog post… You can skim a video to get to the bit you want. Not so easy to skim a podcast. Someone really needs to be consuming it start to finish and well, people are busy.

Topic specific – Not everything translates well to stand alone audio. You really need to think about what your business does and your goals and ask yourself will your time be better spent on another content type.

So, what do you think… Are you team podcast or not?