RGC has established a podcast studio perfectly setup for recording solo hosts located in our office in Toowong, Brisbane. If you’re looking for a facility to produce a high quality podcasts or piece-to-camera video then get in touch with us to hire our studio facilities.
Our studio is equipped with Rode microphones, Logitech camera, large monitor and adjustable LED lighting, and features acoustic optimisation and an impressive backdrop to set the scene.
We use Riverside.fm, a powerful cloud-based recording suite to record your audio or video podcast. Riverside is perfect for remote video and audio recording, it features studio-quality audio and video tracks for each participant and enables guests to join from the comfort of their own home or office.
As Riverside is a browser-based platform, guests are not required to download or install third party software to join the recording on a computer. Guests may join your session with one click on a link, and all recordings are uploaded to and stored in the cloud.
To ensure your podcast recording is seamless, studio manager Luke Greensill is on hand as your dedicated producer throughout the recording session. He will provide guidance and manage the recording so you can focus on what you do best. We also offer editing of your recording to ensure your message is delivered as professionally and efficiently as possible.
Podcasting is a powerful tool for corporate storytelling, offering a unique platform to engage audiences in a more personal and authentic way. Podcasts can help humanise a brand, provide in-depth content on a topic, position a company or executive as a thought leader and share interesting customer stories.
Want podcasting to form an integral part of your storytelling mix and content calendar? Let’s talk!
An important consideration in building your brand is to engage with your audience in varied and creative ways. These days, your brand persona is needed to be replicated across multiple mediums and not just in static formats. Your customers are looking to engage with you in different ways than in the past.
With the power of audio and video, connecting with customers and a broad audience in an informative and intimate manner is possible on a regular basis, inexpensively and from the comfort of your own office or home.
Webcasting has accelerated over the past 12 months with the interruption brought on by the pandemic. With it not being possible to be physically present in many instances, webcasting has proliferated, offering an opportunity for brands to engage with their audience from a digital perspective.
Services such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams have proliferated, not just as a means of hosting internal meetings, but as a way of presenting information and insights to audiences.
Webcasting has proven popular with event organisers to live stream events, where the audience can be opened up to many more people than can likely attend in person, and at a greatly reduced cost.
This type of rich content can be used to build loyalty between a brand and its customers. The ability for interaction is also very important, with viewers able to interact during the webcast and also via social media platforms.
The Power of Audio
With low production costs and few barriers to entry, podcasting as a medium is available to nearly everyone. The popularity of portable music players and smartphones has only made accessibility to podcasts easier.
Audio is still a very powerful medium, and smart brands are using it in creative ways as a powerful marketing tool. It is also a good alternative to video. Not everyone is comfortable using video, so an audio recording can be a viable alternative. People often listen to podcasts because they have an affinity to the speaker and are willing through subscribing to receive regular episodes.
Leading Australian podcaster, Mamamia, has recently launched its latest bespoke podcast series in partnership with Westpac to help women navigate the financial side of everyday life.
‘What The Finance’ is an eight-episode podcast co-hosted by ex-accountant and financial educator, Melissa Browne, and actress, author and advocate Pallavi Sharda. From Savings and Debt to Housing, Investing and Relationships, the series will assist young women looking to make more informed decisions about their finances.
There is easy to use software to help you record, create and host your podcast and will help you distribute it to multiple podcast platforms.
RGC Media & Marketing has its own digital studio available for Podcast and Webcast recording. If you would like to talk to us about how these opportunities can help reach new audiences please contact us on 1300 854 502 or info@rgcmm.com.au
Australian Podcast Rankings
Australian podcast downloads hit 50 million in March, up from 43 million the previous month according to Triton Digital’s Podcast Ranker.
The Ranker provides insight into the Top 100 Podcasts in Australia as well as the Top 10 Publishers in Australia for March 2021, as measured by Triton’s Podcast Metrics measurement service.
Casefile True Crime remains ranked in the top spot, cementing the popularity of the true crime format.
Here is the Top 20 – for the full list visit Triton Digital’s Podcast Ranker.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat on the Australian Government’s stoush with principally Facebook and Google, what is the state of play of the highly charged News Media Bargaining Code?
In action which was closely watched around the world, the Australian Government’s code has now been brought in as law after passing through both houses of parliament.
Both Google and Facebook have been negotiating, and in many cases signing deals, with Australian publishers with Facebook being later to the party, and after sensationally dropping Australian news from its feed in what was seen as a tough protest and negotiating tactic. Facebook returned news for Australian users after getting some changes from the Australian Government following its dramatic decision to drop news.
The news media bargaining code was introduced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in an attempt to force Facebook and Google to pay for the news content they publish on their platforms.
Facebook had asserted that the value in the news chain for its platform was strongly in favour of news publishers, saying, “… last year Facebook generated approximately 5.1 billion free referrals to Australian publishers worth an estimated AU$407 million to the news industry.”
The code allows eligible Australian media organisations to bargain with Google and Facebook to secure fair payment for their news content. The code isn’t mandating how much should be paid, but rather providing a compulsory negotiating process in the absence of direct deals being struck.
A statement from Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the code “provides a framework for good faith negotiations between the parties and a fair and balanced arbitration process to resolve outstanding disputes.
“The Code will ensure that news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to sustain public interest journalism in Australia.”
What deals are being done?
On the 15th March 2021, News Corp announced that it “… has reached a multi-year agreement to provide access to trusted news and information to millions of Facebook users in Australia through its Facebook News product.”
The agreement involves News Corp Australia and includes The Australian national newspaper, the news.com.au news site, major metropolitan mastheads like The Daily Telegraph in New South Wales, Herald Sun in Victoria and The Courier-Mail in Queensland and regional and community publications.
News Corp also said Sky News Australia has reached a new agreement with Facebook which extends and significantly builds on an existing arrangement. News Corp also has news payment deals with Google and Apple.
The News Corp agreement follows Facebook deals with Seven West Media, and private publishers Private Media, Schwartz Media and Solstice Media.
It is understood that Nine Entertainment Co also has signed a letter of intent with Facebook with an announcement expected soon.
Google has been far quicker to negotiate deals than Facebook. Google announced a deal worth A$30 million with Seven West Media in February for news content for its Google Showcase product.
Seven West Media managing director and chief executive officer, James Warburton, said: “Both agreements are a significant step forward for Australian news media and are a clear acknowledgement by all parties of the value and importance of original news content.”
Google also has announced deals with Guardian Australia and a $30 million deal with Nine.
Why is Facebook more reluctant to make deals?
Quite simply, competition. Google has more, especially in search, and Facebook as a giant social network has less, argues Peter Martin, visiting fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.
Facebook has said that only about four per cent of posts on the platform are works of journalism. As the pre-eminent social network, it really doesn’t have a significant competitor. Google’s service relies a lot more on news articles, and Microsoft has indicated it supports the legislation and would commit its Bing search service to remain in Australia “and that it is prepared to share revenue with news organizations under the rules that Google and Facebook are rejecting.”
One could also surmise that Google and Facebook could see that by doing the deals now it would save them much money, especially when under the code an independent arbitrator would determine the final value of a deal.
For now, a number of our publishers are getting some much needed additional revenue. It is not known, however, how much of this will be channelled back into journalism and newsrooms. The code does not mandate this.
Update 6 May 2021
Seven West Media has now signed agreements with both Google and Facebook which will see the two companies pay Seven to publish news from Seven. It has signed on for a three-year deal with Facebook and five years with Google.
Australian Community Media has signed a letter of intent with Facebook to provide news and information through Facebook News. The deal will involve over 40 ACM regional, rural and suburban mastheads and publications. Some of the publications include the Newcastle Herald, Bendigo Advertiser, Canberra Times, and the Illawarra Mercury.
Podcasting is not new. However, what was once seen as a niche and hobbyist medium has well and truly gone mainstream.
The art of audio storytelling has seemingly been given a shot in the arm through this format and embraced by content producers equally, from those at the kitchen table through to the larger media houses.
Many people first became aware of them when Apple over 15 years ago first offered over 3,000 free podcasts on iTunes. According to Forbes, there are now over 800,000 active podcasts with over 54 million podcast episodes available globally.
With low production costs and few barriers to entry, podcasting as a medium is available to nearly everyone. The popularity of portable music players and smartphones has only made accessibility to podcasts easier.
Michele Levine, chief executive of research firm Roy Morgan, said podcasts are growing in popularity in Australia with nearly 10% of Australians now downloading audio or video podcasts in an average month:
“Podcasts are a relatively new part of the media landscape but are making an increasing impact as audiences for the service are on a steady growth track up an impressive 70% over the last four years to over 1.6 million Australians in 2019.
“The ability to listen to your favourite podcast while commuting to and from work and tuning out from the hustle and bustle on crowded public transport, or just relaxing in your spare time to catch up on what’s been happening in an area of personal interest is appealing to a growing number of Australians.”
Podcast rankings
As the attention of advertisers and brands follows, the seemingly fragmented world of podcasting and audience measurement is becoming more ordered, particularly with radio heavyweights embracing the platform.
Late in 2019, Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) announced the launch of the first monthly Australian Podcast Ranker which sees Australia’s top 100 most-downloaded and listened to podcasts ranked each month. The monthly rankings can be accessed here.
The ranking was launched with a foundation group of podcast publishers including News Corp Australia, Podcast One Australia, Nova Entertainment, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), Australian Radio Network (ARN), Macquarie Media and SEN/ Crocmedia.
The rankings are dominated by our larger entertainment groups, with many familiar names including Hamish and Andy at the top. True crime is continually popular with News Corp Australia’s series of crime podcasts ranking highly including The Nowhere Child and Who the Hell is Hamish?
How can podcasting benefit your brand?
Have you considered podcasting as a means of engaging with your customers and seeking out new audiences? A podcast may well fit in with your brand strategy and content marketing program and provide the following benefits:
Reach new audiences
Podcasting can help you reach new audiences, especially through recommendations and referrals from satisfied listeners. If your podcast provides relevant and informative listening chances are that others will value your show, even if they’re not currently a customer.
Building relationships with an audience
Even though a podcast provides a largely one-way stream, it’s a great way to speak directly to your audience and is considered quite a personal medium, much like quality radio programming. The audience has elected to opt in, so you have a good opportunity to keep their attention.
Make your brand more real
If you avoid the temptation of the hard sell and instead provide an informative listening experience and make your listeners feel part of a community then your engagement levels will be high and this will be reflected in brand trust and confidence.
Accurate Analytics
The digital medium allows you to accurately measure engagement by tracking key statistics which may include, amongst others:
Facebook has announced changes to its news feed flagged last year which will have the effect of prioritising posts from friends and video content over posts from media outlets and businesses.
For news outlets and pages this will change the likelihood of their posts appearing in your news feed.
Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s head of News Feed wrote in a post that Facebook was built to bring people closer together and build relationships
He wrote: “With this update, we will also prioritize posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people. To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion. We will also prioritize posts from friends and family over public content…”
“Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.”
You can read Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement here in full:
So, what types of Page posts will show higher in News Feed?
According to Mosseri page posts that generate conversation between people will show higher in News Feed. For example, live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook – in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos. Many creators who post videos on Facebook prompt discussion among their followers, as do posts from celebrities. In Groups, people often interact around public content. Local businesses connect with their communities by posting relevant updates and creating events. And news can help start conversations on important issues.
If you still want to see all content from a favourite page or business, you will still be able to; you’ll need to change the appropriate preference setting to see posts from your favourite pages.
This change is a sure-fire reminder that Facebook is there to make money and not just to give a business or publisher a free platform to promote itself and drive traffic. Organic reach will continue to decline for them and necessitate a rethink on the sort of content they provide and the level of sponsorship they will need or future posts.
If you’re a brand and can generate engagement, discussion and sharing then you may still be able to generate organic reach. However, all brands will need to rethink their content marketing strategies and decide how important Facebook is to their marketing programs.
Facebook has introduced these sorts of changes before and now it’s up to users and advertisers to react and respond.
Hopefully one meaningful change to news feed will be the penalising of publishers who seem to thrive on clickbait-type articles and headlines. We’re looking at you, Fox Sports!
Put simply, producing cornerstone content is about getting your web or blog page to rank highly by Google.
Of course, it is helpful to have informative content for the benefit of your customers and site visitors, but ultimately Google will need to be told which of your articles are the most important – especially where you write a number of posts about similar topics.
Cornerstone content then are those articles (or a static page on a topic) that you feel are the most informative and that you would like to rank highly in search engines. The key then is to create internal links to that page of content or article. Internal links are an important ranking factor.
It’s possible to have more than one cornerstone page on a website. You may have one for each of several key topics.
Cornerstone articles can be long, including everything relevant and important for your readers about the topic. Make sure it uses good SEO practice – keyword focused, headings, imagery etc. Smart internal linking can push this article up in the search results. It’s a good idea to update it regularly and expand on it when possible.
You should link all your other posts about a similar topic to that article. An internal linking structure will increase the chance of your content article ranking in Google.
If you’re using the WordPress platform, the Yoast SEO Premium plugin makes it easy for you to identify which are the cornerstone articles and to be prompted to link to them.
The first goal of cornerstone content is usefulness and relevancy to the visitor, no matter how they arrive.
The second goal is to make that content so compelling and comprehensive that people are willing – no, make that excited – to link to it.
Benefits of creating cornerstone content
It provides a very informative source and value to readers
Google is responsive to these sort of articles and they rank well in search engines
Cornerstone content helps you boost your blog’s credibility
People will be more likely to share this content on social media
It can attract back-links from other authoritative sources
Ultimately direct a lot of traffic and hopefully new subscribers and customers.
The benefits of linking can be seen by Fairfax media in all their articles and newsletters where they are constantly linking back to their own stories. They are forming content clusters with their authoritative journalism and feature articles.
The Australian Financial Review will link back to a feature article (hyperlinked in blue) on the imposition of the big bank levy in all their articles related to this topic – a cornerstone article. A content article that amazes us on our own blog with the constant traffic it receives is an article about the difference between publicity and public relations. It works because it provides answers on a topic, is informative, responds to a search query, and is shareable. And, as you can see, we will link back to it wherever possible as cornerstone content.
Another year is underway and nothing’s more certain than the changing social media landscape. It’s important to keep updated with relevant changes to your social media accounts and initiatives.
Here’s a wrap of a few recent changes and trends which may impact your social media strategy:
News Feed Update Now Responding To Surveys
Facebook continues to tinker with its News Feed as it tries to improve the experience and show more relevant stories. This will of course assist with targeted marketing activities.
Facebook has traditionally used technology to hone the News Feed, tailoring the experience based on your likes, clicks, comments and shared posts. Facebook of course recognises that technology is not perfect in assessing your varied interests. It is now using qualitative research to have users rate their experience and assess posts in their feed. By surveying users and asking the question “how much did you want to see this story in your News Feed?”, Facebook is gaining a better understanding of what people are interested in seeing regardless of whether they interact with the post.
According to Facebook people are having a better News Feed experience when the stories they see at the top are stories they are both likely to rate highly and and likely to engage with.
Facebook is making an update to News Feed to incorporate this likelihood based on their research.
These changes will have a varying degree of impact depending upon the composition of your audience and posting activity. Facebook says that in general this update should not impact reach or referral traffic meaningfully for the majority of Pages.
Overall you should continue to post content that your audience finds meaningful and interesting.
Facebook provides some good information on News Feed Best Practices and also Page post best practices. Review these regularly and track the effectiveness of your posts to give you greater insight into your most valued content and best posting habits.
Facebook Sports Stadium
Facebook is clamouring to get a slice of the real-time chatter which goes on during big events, particularly big sporting match-ups.
Photo by Donald Miralle for Sports Illustrated
This has long been the domain for Twitter where people can instantly share news, scores, opinions and generally vent about the last score. Twitter registered 28 million tweets for Superbowl 49 – up from 24 million the previous year and is favoured because of its immediacy.
Facebook has responded by launching Facebook Sports Stadium aimed at their 650 million followers who like sports. It’s a place where you can see:
-posts from your friends and their comments on the game
-expert commentary and posts from those who cover the game and access to their Pages
-live scores and stats
-other game information like TV schedules.
Currently available for American football games it will soon cover other sports around the world. We’re bound to see it in Australia soon.
It apparently struggled to keep up though with traffic during the recent Superbowl 50 between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers and was a number of minutes behind with the scores.
It took 7 mins for Facebook Sports Stadium to update the score with the Panthers’ touchdown. Early days but Twitter is still winning. #sb50
Facebook will persevere and it will be hard to bet against them making an impact during these live events. Soccer and the Olympics will surely be a huge worldwide draw card.
Instagram Multiple Accounts One eagerly awaited Instagram feature, which has been a long time coming, is the ability to run multiple accounts on Instagram. Up to now, you had to log off Instagram and log in under another account if you were, for example, using a private account and also managing a corporate account.
Twitter and Facebook has had this capability for a while and finally it has come to iOS and Android in the latest Instagram version, 7.15.
You now have the ability to add up to five accounts and you will be able to see which account you have active from several points in the app.
This will be a huge time saver.
Podcasts
Podcasts are poised to become one of the fastest growing mediums for individuals and brands wishing to reach new audiences according to smk (social media knowledge).
Podcasts have been around for some time and were first mentioned back in 2004. The rise of smartphones and tablets has certainly boosted their popularity.
smk identifies a defining moment in the rise of Podcast being when ongoing true story Serial became the first to pass five million downloads in 2014.
Podcasts are great to consume whilst you’re on the move with most listeners loving to learn about new things.
Some of the most popular Podcasts in Australia currently include:
Despite many claims there are only a few real social media ninjas out there. While many businesses and individuals are doing it pretty well, there’s always room for improvement. However, there are some basic errors that too may accounts still make. Don’t get caught out making these obvious errors in your social media management.
Poor profile
We’ve all visited a page or profile and not been really sure if it’s the place we’re looking for or relevant at all to our needs. Make it obvious what you’re about and if you’re a business provide relevant contact information and a summary of exactly what you do or the products you are offering. If you don’t it could be costing you dollars.
Make sure you fill out your profile information in full and provide information people want about you. Don’t leave them in the dark and create a bad first impression. They will go elsewhere quick smart.
Buying followers
Avoid the temptation to buy followers. While it may sound tempting to buy a thousand new fans for ten bucks the reality is that they are largely fake accounts and won’t engage with your content.
Authentic engaging content is the holy grail and this will bring real fans who want to follow you for a reason. It’s the old tale of the hare and the tortoise as far as building a real following is concerned.
Not monitoring conversations
There’s no point building up a broad following if you’re not going to listen and take notice of what people are saying about you. You can gain valuable insight and feedback about your business from what people are saying about you – warts and all.
If you’re not paying attention you will miss out. If you’re attentive and prepared to interact you will be seen as authentic, caring and open for business.
There are many free and paid tools out there that can help you monitor and track conversations and sentiment. Meltwater, Hootsuite and Sprout Social are some of the better ones. Otherwise, just look and listen each and every day.
Call to action (CTA)
If you are wanting a visitor to do something; buy, refer, ask something, then you need to entice them to do just that and provide the way to do it.
Make sure you provide the link and let the person know what they’re being lead to – ‘Click here to to take control of your financial future now.’
Having no CTA just leaves them hanging and ultimately frustrated and unfulfilled. You’ve done the hard work in getting them there; don’t forget to close the deal.
Poor scheduling
You want to make sure that your audience is seeing your content. You need to understand them and their online habits amongst other key demographic information. Give your posts the best possible chance of being seen. Don’t post when your audience is less likely to be there.
It can be a bit hit and miss sometimes, but you can build up an understanding of the best times to post. Monitor your engagement and reach by day of the week and time and start looking for any patterns. Most good social media tools will feature a scheduling function to help schedule pre-prepared content to post at times you desire.
News website The Huffington Post has arrived in Australia as the 15th news platform in its growing global network, partnering locally with Fairfax Media.
HuffPost has the largest news audience in the US with 214 million unique visitors per month.
“HuffPost Australia will be dedicated to producing great original reporting about the critical issues that Australians face, and to telling stories that focus on helping Australians live more fulfilling lives, while opening up our blogging platform to voices from all across the country to start a conversation on the topics that matter to Australians most,” founder Arianna Huffington said at the time of launch.
Former journalist and News Corp editor Tory Maguire has been appointed Huffington Post Australia inaugural editor and will oversee a team of staff based in Sydney with many of them coming from Fairfax’s various titles. Other high profile hires have been made including former ABC and SBS political editor Karen Barlow.
HuffPost utilises a lot of contributed content from bloggers on a variety of topics and has been criticised heavily for not paying them but rather offering them ‘exposure’.
Dee Madigan, creative director, Campaign Edge told ABC Lateline she was sent an email by The Huffington Post’s blogging platform asking if she would contribute in return for “exposure”.
“They said, ‘We don’t pay, we’ll give you really good exposure’,” Madigan told Lateline.
“I’m a professional writer. This is how I make my living. I can’t pay my mortgage with exposure.”
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Paul Murphy has indicated that any journalist who was approached to write for HuffPost should be paid.
The reality of course is that there will be many contributors happy to supply original stories and opinion free of charge to build their profile and utilise the site’s reach.
Others welcome the competition and the extra hiring of local journalists at the site. With the general culling of journalists which has happened over a period of time it is a good thing to see new opportunities for professional writers created in Australia.
Fairfax will bolster the operation in Australia also with advertising sales and technical support.
Other international news organisations have already established their Australian presence including Guardian Australia, Daily Mail Australia and Buzzfeed Australia.
Arianna Huffington, also a prolific author, was a conservative commentator before engaging in liberal politics and starting The Huffington Post in 2005. Of Greek background she has lived in Great Britain before moving to the U.S. At one stage she ran for the California governorship against Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Arianna Huffington image from bandt.com.au
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Michele Levine, chief executive of research firm Roy Morgan, said podcasts are growing in popularity in Australia with nearly 10% of Australians now downloading audio or video podcasts in an average month:
