Content and links from the episode
Transforming Faculty into Influencers Through Podcasting
In this episode, Robert Li delves into the untapped potential of creating and producing personal podcast shows for faculty members. By turning them into influencers, these podcasts leverage the academic expertise of faculty to engage with a broader audience. Lee cites the success of Andrew Huberman’s podcast as a key case study, demonstrating how long-form content can lead to high engagement and substantial follower counts. This approach isn’t just about growing an audience; it’s also about incorporating newsletters, social media, and even subscription models that can support academic research, much like Huberman has done with Stanford.
Reducing University Comms Team Workload Without Sacrificing Quality
Lee mentions that this approach often involves working directly with faculty, effectively bypassing university communications teams. While this might seem exclusionary, it actually reduces the workload for the comms teams without losing out on quality promotional content. This method also gleans another benefit—ensuring that communications produced have a genuine, authoritative voice that’s aligned with academic research and expertise.
Strategic Content Creation to Align with Institutional Goals
Lee emphasizes that successful podcasts need to align with the institution’s overall communication strategy. Depending on strategic goals, the podcast can cover diverse topics, from student stories to the admissions process. Examples such as the “All Else Equal” podcast from Stanford and Wharton demonstrate how specialized content not only enhances educational value but also drives meaningful engagement. Case studies and learning resources are available at university.fm/learning to help institutions evaluate and benchmark their podcast performance.
Multipurposing Content and Effective Promotion
The discussion highlights the importance of multipurposing podcast content. Podcasts can provide versatile material for blogs, social media, and video clips, making them a valuable resource for comprehensive communication strategies. However, producing great content alone isn’t enough. Lee advises allocating 40% of efforts to promotion, recommending strategies like social media marketing, cross-promotion, and guest appearances on other podcasts.
Faculty Engagement and Overcoming Institutional Barriers
Engaging faculty in podcasting can be challenging due to resource constraints within university comms teams. Robert’s companies offer solutions such as podcast training and bookings, streamlining the process and enabling faculty to focus on sharing their expertise. This approach not only benefits the institution by broadening its outreach but also assists in promoting public scholarship and higher education.
Scheduling and Measuring Success
One logistical challenge discussed is scheduling high-profile guests. To combat this, Lee suggests advance and bulk scheduling. Measuring success goes beyond download numbers, focusing on listen-through rates and social media engagement metrics. Universities should aim for a 70% listen-through rate or higher, ensuring the content resonates with the audience.
Ultimately, the key to podcast success in higher education lies in strategic planning, targeted content, effective promotion, and faculty engagement.
Read the transcription
Shiro [00:00:15]:
Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast hosted by Concept 3 d. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us. As always, I am Shiro Hattori, your host. And today, I’m very excited to talk about higher ed podcasting 101. For the topic, I’m really thrilled to have Robert Lee join us today. He’s a founder at professors dot f m and university dot f m. Welcome to the show, Robert.
Robert Lee [00:00:41]:
Thank you. Sure. It’s a pleasure to be here. And, really quick, I just gotta say, I think you’re doing a really, really amazing job with the podcast as a podcaster myself. Been following you for a long time, so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Shiro [00:00:54]:
I appreciate that a lot. I know we got to connect in person at, AMA in Vegas a few weeks ago, so it was great to meet you in person as well. I do have an icebreaker that I ask all my guests, which is please tell us what you love about higher ed.
Robert Lee [00:01:09]:
Yeah. I’d say what I love the most about higher ed, I think one side is best. Their passions of, you know, places for discovery and critical thinking. And that’s also connected, you know, very closely to why we focus on podcasting for higher ed because it is a process of sharing stories that help people learn more about the world around them, and also being able to gain a knowledge to think more critically when they, I guess, live.
Shiro [00:01:38]:
Right. Yep. I think higher ed brings everyone up, so I think that’s a great point. Well, let’s let’s jump in here. So, you have a lot of things going on. Right? So can you tell us briefly about all the companies you’re running and a little bit about your background as well?
Robert Lee [00:01:52]:
Sure. So there’s, 2 companies. So one, Professors FM, and the other, University FM. They both work really close, you know, hand in hand, really together as a full service podcast PR agency. So what that means is that we help hire a team. So they could be comms teams, that could be presidents, you know, students, professors, helping them with the podcast strategy, the production of the show, the marketing of the show, and also podcast me training and booking. So everything podcast related. How I got to space was, you know, about 5 years ago, I was a student at the University of Michigan.
Robert Lee [00:02:33]:
And when I was there, I was a part of the, WCBN radio station, so the student radio. And that’s where I started getting into audio storytelling and really falling in love with that process. While I was there, interviewed students, also interviewed some faculty. And around the same time, my brother, my cofounder, Sean, he was studying at, UC Berkeley. And when he was there, he did a podcast. And, basically, we we got together one of these, Witcher breaks and talked about, hey. What it would look like to help other universities get into this medium?
Shiro [00:03:08]:
And how long have you been doing this for?
Robert Lee [00:03:11]:
Yeah. So 5 years total, and every single year, learn something new, adapting as higher ed is, overall, and, learning kind of the intricacies of working with universities and colleges, and intricacies of what is important from the higher institutions, and how to communicate that to a broader audience who’s not so deep, you know, within academia.
Shiro [00:03:37]:
Gotcha. Well, thank you. And I know in our previous call just to get a feel for each other, you talked about how there’s kind of, like, 4 main categories of podcasts that exist in higher ed today. And I love how you break, broke them all down. So could you share that again with us today?
Robert Lee [00:03:53]:
Yeah. Sure. And, I’ll just, you know, preface this. So we kind of happened upon these categories because we work with universities. We realize that there’s certain types of podcasts for, of course, certain different goals depending on who we’re working with. So within the university, you know, you have your president podcast, so very, you know, hot thought leadership at the highest level. And then you have your podcast of alumni, so it’s like alumni relations, trying to feature career success stories or provide lifelong learning. Then you have this category of podcasts with students.
Robert Lee [00:04:27]:
And so that’s like more student learning opportunity and also tied with, say, students or enrollment podcasting to share the students’ story. And lastly would be this, you know, working with faculty, faculty experts. So there’s more research podcasting where you’re trying to translate complex research ideas into layman terms, into relatable stories, for a broader audience. So those are broadly the the 4 categories that we’ve recognized as we work more specifically in higher ed podcasting.
Shiro [00:05:04]:
Gotcha. And I know I’ve had Kate Young from the This is Purdue podcast on this show before. I I love their podcast, by the way, and everything they are able to create from that. Where would that fit into, like, the categories, or does it kinda have some overlap?
Robert Lee [00:05:18]:
Yeah. Definitely overlap. Actually, it’s all at a 5th category here. And and what we call is, like, the official university podcast. Right. The, because that’s what Ky Kyung does with This is Purdue. Again, fantastic show and also her as a host. She’s fantastic.
Robert Lee [00:05:32]:
As a person, she’s fantastic. So check it out if you haven’t yet. But, official university podcast because the overall goal of that type of show is at the highest level trying to, build the brand of the institution and trying to show all the different aspects of of the university from the research to the student experience to the community engagement. So it’s unique in the sense that, it’s powerful with its lack of focus in a way.
Shiro [00:06:04]:
Yeah. No. To to increase that brand awareness, and you can kinda pick and choose from each one of the 4 categories beneath it. Do you so here’s my understanding or my, my thought of how many official university podcasts there are out there. I feel like there’s very, very few of them, and there’s many more professor highlights, student focused, alumni focused, and president focused podcasts out there versus official university podcast. Is that assumption? Do you think that’s also true as well in your opinion?
Robert Lee [00:06:36]:
Yeah. I think that’s true. I mean, I think the the lack of official university podcasts is because of two main reasons. One is it’s it is inherently difficult to have a podcast like that be successful because it’s not so focused. And when I say that, the the important note is you want the podcast to be focused because then people who are listening to the show will understand what to expect from the show. And so if they were to become subscribers or long time followers, they know exactly what they’re coming to the show for. For so for university podcasts, when it’s that broad, sometimes, people, you know, other than, okay, want to hear stories from that particular university, they don’t have a bigger reason to engage. This Purdue, I think, is a very unique example because the Purdue brand is already so strong, and they have such a strong alumni student community base.
Robert Lee [00:07:38]:
So just because it is Purdue, they won’t listen. But I think if it’s like a smaller university, smaller college, the less likely it’ll be successful. So that’s 1. Just, you know, bless university podcast because of the, you know, lack of focus or or less focus. Mhmm. And then I think the second reason is, you know, there’s definitely been people who have tried creating university level podcasts, but there’s just, just a lot of difficulty with that mainly bandwidth Yeah. As you’re trying to cover and and, coordinate with so many different, I guess, entities within the university. At some point, if you feel like you’re not making as much progress or impact as you want to, then, okay, it’s very easy to just slowly get out of the habit of publishing, and then slowly, the the show goes away.
Shiro [00:08:30]:
Interesting. Oh, related to the to to all the things we just talked about, let’s say your goal is to influence enrollment marketing. Is there my assumption is, like, a student podcast is probably the best theme to start with for that. Do you have any ideas or thoughts there too?
Robert Lee [00:08:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. It, I I think it’s important to, you know, remember that the podcast is a is a extension of the overall communication strategy. So, you know, for for us, like, the podcast member leads the strategy. So if the strategy were, hey, already, hey. We want to feature more student stories, then, okay, that’ll be the route to go for the podcast because it’ll match up with the rest of all the content that’s coming out. But if the communication strategy was made more focused on talking about the admissions process,
Shiro [00:09:19]:
Mhmm.
Robert Lee [00:09:20]:
Then you have a different flavor of this where it’s a podcast focused on the admissions process maybe between international students and domestic students, or different phases of that process. Like, I I can say, you know, another good example to check out here is, I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s a law admissions podcast between Harvard and Yale. And it’s all about the missions of how to get into law school generally. That worked really well. If I use then more maybe like Kate’s example again, like, when she features the or, actually, no. Let me take it back. So if I use the example of the show that we do with Howard University called from h u to u, that one features episodes that are of current students who are talking about really inspiring things that they’re currently working on. And so that would relate more or really better to students prospective student listeners.
Robert Lee [00:10:21]:
So 2 different flavors there of how podcasting could tie in with the enrollment marketing comp strategy.
Shiro [00:10:28]:
Yeah. That’s very interesting. I like how you brought up the point with law school because that’s very specialized. And in most cases, schools are turning down students. And so, it’s it’s like a helpful piece of advice to students versus, like, maybe a central comms team running a podcast for enrollment marketing. Mhmm. Yeah. There there there will definitely be some different flavors with that.
Shiro [00:10:48]:
So
Robert Lee [00:10:48]:
Yeah. To avoid that. And I think, you know, with with when thinking about what prospective students are interested in, perhaps, you know, through surveys or such, you find out, hey. They already have enough information about the admissions process. That’s not the focus. But maybe they’re interested particularly in certain programs, and so the podcast could focus on program highlights. Yeah. Another flavor.
Shiro [00:11:18]:
Yeah. Which would tie in more of the professors and faculty. Right?
Robert Lee [00:11:22]:
Yeah. Exactly. So, in that scenario, a lot of people who, listen to podcasts generally, I I think, would know about Freakonomics, which is a economic show coming from these 2 professors who teach at the University of Chicago. You know, Freakonomics, the podcast, same same book. Freakonomics, the book. And there’s definitely cases where students really consider applying to the University of Chicago just because they they follow these professors and really appreciate the research that they’re putting out there and sharing and they want to go to a university where they can have that same sort of learning experience. So that’s another way, another flavor of how a faculty research podcast could attract, students.
Shiro [00:12:15]:
Okay. I like this because I know we’re gonna talk a little bit more about this towards the end, but, how you can create almost like a a purse a personal brand if you’re a very influential professor and how that could could generate demand in the future for prospective students. So I like that. Cool. Well, great. Can you tell us a little bit about the way of the land in podcast in higher ed? I know we just you know, we’re we just went through a pandemic, and that was a crazy time. And you’ve had some observations about what happened from, like, 2020 and now. Yeah.
Shiro [00:12:47]:
Just tell us a little bit about, like, kind of what happened in the last 5 years.
Robert Lee [00:12:51]:
Yeah. So I’ll say that, you know, we started out. It was during COVID. And if you remember at that time, yeah, everything is shut down. So you’re just trying to figure out how to create experiences in the virtual world. And during that time, a lot of people then started thinking, okay. Why don’t we start a podcast? Because people are just at home, and they can listen to this. It’s a great way to engage with audiences internationally, you know, not just regionally.
Robert Lee [00:13:24]:
And it seems like it won’t be as big of a lift as, say, creating, like, a whole video series or something like that. So the general idea that most people had was lesser podcasts and less just interview interesting people. And what we found or we found out is that a lot of those shows that started doing COVID from universities, like today, they don’t exist anymore. Like, they’re inactive. And a big reason for that is they’re probably not seeing results that they expected. And so the learning lesson here, I think, is when you start a podcast, being very clear on the strategy for that podcast. Because, again, a lot of these shows just started out by just thinking, hey. As long as we get interesting people as guests, like, it’ll go fine.
Robert Lee [00:14:16]:
But it’s more than that. Right? Like, before the guests, you really have to be clear on who your target audience is and why this podcast exists and what is this podcast perspective that’s different from all the other content that’s out there in the world. So, yeah, from COVID, huge burst in podcasts. And over time today, a lot of those shows are inactive. But I think at this current stage, podcasting feels like it’s getting to more maturity within the higher ed industry. I definitely see as I have more conversations with communications directors about podcasting, they’re much more intentional about wanting to make sure, like, hey. If they’re going to do a podcast, which there’s a lot of interest in doing, if they’re going to do it, then how do they do it right? Or how do you make sure that it’s successful enough that it’s a continuous effort rather than just doing 1 season and being disappointed?
Shiro [00:15:15]:
Yeah. That’s very interesting. And I I think, I mean, from hosting this podcast, I know there’s huge value in podcasting just because the the content you’re creating from it is you can you can break it down into so many different pieces of content. Right? Like, this is gonna be a video piece. Right? So I can create video clips from them. And so I could imagine if you’re interviewing a student about how they’re liking their current, let’s say, business school program. Right? Not only can it become an episode on the show, you can now create video clips from them, maybe even a full video episode. You can create blog content from it.
Shiro [00:15:53]:
It can help think of other ideas, and it just it turns into a lot more from, I think, very little work in comparison to your example of, like, creating a video series where there’s a lot of work that goes into the production, the planning, securing the guests, etcetera. And I think it’s just such a good piece of content. So I’m I’m glad it’s starting to mature.
Robert Lee [00:16:15]:
Yeah. I mean, 1 so what you’re knowing here is kind of, like, kind of flywheel that can be built off of a podcast. Mhmm. And that’s the strategy we follow, which is a content creation for sure because podcasts, most of the time, they are a long form piece of content. On average, episodes range between 30 40 epis sorry, 30 40 minutes. Mhmm. Of course, you have some that are, like, below 10, some, you know, more than an hour. Within that 34, 40 minute range, you really allow the conversation to get deep into topics.
Robert Lee [00:16:49]:
You really allow people to explore the the conversation. And from that, as you’re mentioning, there’s so many clips you can make from it for short video, for repurpose, like, social media cards, for content for a newsletter or, like, article. And that’s just a wonderful way of, I think, achieving efficiency with podcasting. Start the podcast, create all these other things from it.
Shiro [00:17:15]:
I like that. We talked a little bit about production efficiency. So what are some of, like, top five things you need to you said a lot of a lot of podcasts have now, are now inactive, which started in COVID. What are some, like, tips, maybe 3 to 5 things that help to make sure that you can continue, a podcast given that you do have clear goals and audience set already.
Robert Lee [00:17:41]:
Yeah. So given that you have all set, one of the biggest challenges, logistically is the scheduling process because most of these podcasts are interview podcasts. Scheduling so one example would be if you’re making a present podcast, yeah, scheduling is likely going to be the biggest hurdle you have in some ways because the president is so busy and they have only so many windows of time and you have to match that with the guest. And assuming that’s the president podcast, the guest is also probably pretty high profile. So their schedules are busy. And then you have to coordinate it with, like, the production team of who is actually gonna be, say, on that call right with them. So one is scheduling, and the way to get ahead of that is, say, schedule early, schedule advance, and also do bulk scheduling. So what that means is, go ahead.
Robert Lee [00:18:35]:
It’s better to, schedule, say, 2 or 3 interviews in 1 week rather than one interview for 3 weeks, you know, spread over the 3 weeks. That’ll make the bulk recording easier. And then all of a sudden with that scenario, you take away the bottleneck of scheduling so you can go ahead and do your post special process, in your own time. So it gives you more flexibility. So one will be one will be the scheduling aspect. I think, second one in terms of efficiency would be the revision process. So sometimes, well, how I’ll say how we do it. So the process that we found most sufficient is after the recording is done, then we’ll start the post production for all of the assets, meaning the audio and at the same time, the episode artwork for it, the show note, the transcript, the social media, the video tied to it.
Robert Lee [00:19:36]:
But do that all at the same time and just have one full round revision for all those assets. Something else that we do is that in the revision process, we have all the feedback collected in the transfer documents so we can accurately see, okay, if there’s a specific segment of this episode that needs to be taken out or just added, you can highlight it and make a comment for it, specifically what the change should be. So that’s how we handle the revisions process to make it super quick, super easy, and with confidence that you’re getting all the revisions done that you plan for. I’ll just stop with those 2.
Shiro [00:20:15]:
Okay. No. Appreciate that. That’s that’s great. And I know all this kind of leads into so you’ve had 5 years of experience working with a lot of higher ed partners now. What are some common things that you’ve seen that you should not be doing? I know you had a couple examples in your pre call, but I think one of them was around, like, you know, not turning your podcast into a stream for announcements.
Robert Lee [00:20:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. So let’s start with that one. Yeah. Podcasts are not announcement tools. I, personally, I think announcements are so great for, like, newsletters or just written written announcements, quick email announcements. Right? The podcast Thrive and what they’re built for is when you can have deep 1 on 1 conversations or, you know, small group conversations, to dig into topics. Once announcements, there’s not much to dig into.
Robert Lee [00:21:04]:
Just just say just say what it is. Yeah. Another thing to think about is prioritizing which metrics for measuring success. So oftentimes, the first metric that comes to people’s minds is down numbers. And down numbers, yeah, that’s a good metric to keep in mind, but does it or is it the best metric for what your goals are? So, for example, recently, we just produced a podcast called Belonging at Haas. So that’s for UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and it’s a podcast for their DEI initiative. And it was specifically built for current Haas students. So with that in mind, they were very targeted in their audience.
Robert Lee [00:21:51]:
And current Haas students like that, that size, the the amount of people is not that large. There’s probably a couple of 100. And so you’re not going to expect your downloads to be, say, in the, you know, even into the high thousands. Right? But the important more important metric for them probably would be the listen through rates. So how much of episode are people actually getting through when they listen to it? Because that’s the better way to see if this content is resonating with the people you you meant it to resonate with. On that note, really quick, I’d say a good listen through rate is, like, 70% and above. That’s really good to aim for. To put put you put that in context, like, if you had a 30 minute episode, 70% of that would be about 21, 22 minutes.
Robert Lee [00:22:40]:
So that’s a lot of time that somebody is dedicating to listening, engaging with your content. I’m just comparing that, say, 22 minutes maybe to, like, a, you know, 1, 2 minute or a cold read or even, like, a 5 minute video. So there’s a lot of value in how people spend the time with you.
Shiro [00:22:58]:
Mhmm.
Robert Lee [00:22:59]:
I’m trying to think of a third one here. So I guess let me see.
Shiro [00:23:04]:
I think one example you covered was around research based or, professor like, kinda related to professor highlights and how, I think you you mentioned more to focus on outcomes and learnings versus, like, the process of the research study.
Robert Lee [00:23:20]:
Yeah. So when it comes to faculty research podcasting, something that came in mind is the podcast should not feel like lectures. It’s podcasts or not lectures. It should not feel like a monologue, and it it shouldn’t feel like a lecture in the worst sense, meaning it’s boring. And
Shiro [00:23:42]:
you’re just
Robert Lee [00:23:42]:
sitting there hearing somebody talk at you, right, rather than actively teaching you with examples. So, yeah, there are podcasts out there, research pockets out there where the faculty talk a lot because that’s what they’re good at, but it gives so much detail that it’s it turns off, you know, people who are not in their academic circle.
Shiro [00:24:09]:
Mhmm.
Robert Lee [00:24:10]:
So the best thing to do here is when it comes to faculty research podcasting, make sure to have a pre call with that person to be clear on their key messages, say, 3 key messages they want the listener to take away from this and to prepare examples for those three key messages so that when you get to the podcast, instead of talking through, say, the how the research was conducted, you can talk about the key findings of the research and how they’re important or why they’re important to society today and what context. Because, naturally, that storytelling element will just bring people so much more into the the into the conversation than hearing how the white people was made.
Shiro [00:24:54]:
Yeah. I think that the the word that really sticks out to me is, like, find the story in in your research, and I like that you you said storytelling because I think, ultimately, that’s part of what we’re doing as podcasters. So that’s great. And I know you you tapped in a little bit on the measurement and the KPI aspect right before this one too, and I’m glad we covered that because I’ll give another example from this podcast, the Higher Ed Demand Show, hosted by Concept 3 d. One of the key measurements I look at is not just the download of the episode, but I’ll look at, the micro clips or the video clip I create from this episode, for example, how well that will do on my LinkedIn profile. And, usually, I can gauge, you know, if I had a good guest, who has a good social reach, and if the clip that I had my editor make was a good video clip and was valuable to our audience. And I can see how many impressions and shares and reposts it got. And so that’s, like, a measurement I actually look at more because more people see the video clip than people download on the podcast streaming platform.
Shiro [00:25:53]:
So I use that as my metric.
Robert Lee [00:25:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s a really great point because, generally so my approach, how I think about analytics is you’re not just collecting numbers Mhmm. But you’re trying to collect enough numbers to interpret them for decision making. So in that previous example I was giving about downloads, if that’s, like, the only metric you’re looking at, if you see an episode’s high downloads, another one’s low downloads, you can maybe glean a little bit insight from it, but you don’t really know what action to take. So more about the analyst process because this is pretty unique to the podcasting space. Like, podcast industry in general is very, in my opinion, very far behind in terms of what analytics they provide, versus, say, YouTube video or, like, your Google Analytics for your website. So, generally, what is provided on these listing platforms is your DAO number, your follower count, sometimes, not all the time, your listen to rates, and then maybe a geography.
Robert Lee [00:27:00]:
Right? So so that’s what you start out with. And how we approach this is we collect, sure, that data from all the podcast listening apps. And then there’s also, to your point, like, a second second level, which is collecting the data on the social media or the or the, extra content generated, like, what the interaction is with it. And a third level would be running a listenership survey and which allows you to dig deeper into the listening behaviors of people so that you can really look into okay. For example, we just did this for Rice University. For the people who have never listened to this podcast, what are the reasons they don’t listen? And if it lists that the reason they don’t listen is because, they prefer listening to other podcasts, then, okay, let’s dig one little deeper. What is it about the other podcast that makes you more interested in them than this show? Right? Or another way is, how did you first find out about this podcast? And based off of that, then how do you find out about new episodes? Because that’s going to really provide context for your for making decisions about what actions to take to get this in front of more people. Right? So that’s my you know, that’s what I wanna say about analytics.
Robert Lee [00:28:24]:
It is super important. Generally, podcasts are not good at providing information on it, but there is a way to analyze in detail, say, is more helpful for yourself.
Shiro [00:28:34]:
Gotcha. And this actually touched on a point that I wanted to dig a little deeper with you on, which is around, how do you market a podcast? I know that some of the services you provide, and it’s important to the success of the podcast. Do you have any advice? It could, you know, be very just simple basics to anything you’ve you’ve seen some creative things that your partners are doing.
Robert Lee [00:28:54]:
Yeah. Quick points for just for context. Like, there are many amazing podcasts out there that don’t get that many listens. And I wanna say that because I think a natural reaction for some people is that when their podcast isn’t getting the number of downloads, say, that they want, they immediately think, oh, the content must be the issue. Like, something about the content should be improved. But what I’ve found out over time is that it’s actually more about the promotion piece because you can make a really fantastic show content wise, but people just don’t know about it. Right? And, generally, I would say you should spend about 60% of your time on the content and the 40% on the promotion. Whereas some people spend, like, 95% of content, 5% promotion.
Robert Lee [00:29:47]:
So some good ways of doing marketing or, like, podcast growth. 1, I say on social media specifically, to reach new audiences, short video is your friend, and, like, YouTube video is your friend. Because of how those algorithms are built out, it really promotes your content to, yeah, new people. Whereas, say, social cards, like audiograms, you know, on, say, your Instagram, they’re only going to your current followers. So not such good of a tool for reaching new audience, but it is a good tool for engaging your current audience. Alright. So social media wise, short video, and video generally is the way to go. Second way of approaching marketing is through guesting on other people’s shows.
Robert Lee [00:30:36]:
So say that you have a you have a host who is an expert in whatever this podcast is about. They can guess on other shows in related areas, related fields with audiences that share similar interests. And we find this to be really successful. You can find a good, host guesting opportunity. When you do that, you’re going to bring a new audience from that existing show who’s already interested in your topic. So that one’s really effective. Mhmm. A third way is, like, cross promotions.
Robert Lee [00:31:10]:
So another aspect of podcast partnerships. Again, you find a similar podcast, to your topics, and you would cross promote each other maybe through 10 second, 50 second clips. Say, hey. You should check out a show by much more of an interesting way. Alright? And then I think the 4 a 4th way, a 4th way to approach the, the marketing as a university is to really, really leverage your university channels. Like, make the strategy for putting podcasts into your variety of newsletters, into your social media feeds. Even for some of our clients, you know, they put the podcast on their digital boards like those TV screens on campus.
Shiro [00:31:57]:
Yep.
Robert Lee [00:31:57]:
Alright. So really leverage that. On this point, when you start a podcast, like a new show for your first time, the launch is very, very important because that’s gonna be your first impression. And if you can, like, get a lot of a lot of attention over launch, it’s gonna make your life a lot easier and continually to grow the audience. So for launch, specifically, I say one more thing is to consider paid media just to reach a broader people up front.
Shiro [00:32:28]:
Yeah. That’s super helpful. I I should have taken your tip on the launch part because I think I did a a quiet launch just to see how the market would react, but I think more time could have been spent in that preparation. So really helpful advice. And I know there’s a couple things brewing in that we talked about before that you’re really excited for, and I know I’ll I’ll let you speak to those.
Robert Lee [00:32:51]:
Yeah. So, you know, as a company, we works with a huge variety of types of shows, right, like we were just talking about. Mhmm. Recently, I’ve been more focused on trying to figure out how to help more faculty engage with podcasts, around this general idea of public scholarship and conveying or through public engagement, conveying the value of higher education overall, you know, raising the perception of the value of higher education. And by sharing this knowledge in applicable ways, improving society. Right? Helping more people be aware of this knowledge that we have, but it’s just not communicated out there. There’s a there’s a there’s a challenge that I’ve discovered as really interesting, which is that I I hear often that faculty go to their comms team, their university comms team, wanting support for a podcast. And the university comms team wants to do it, but they don’t.
Robert Lee [00:33:58]:
And the reason why is because bandwidth. Because there’s this thinking that, hey. If we support this one faculty member with their show, then we probably have to commit to supporting a lot of other people as well. So I understand that. And then, and and it’s it’s it’s an interesting dynamic. You know? Because the need is there. The want is there to do it, but there’s just some practical barriers. There’s a bandwidth and and being very, very straightforward, right, with with your restrictions, with your limitations.
Robert Lee [00:34:33]:
And so, you know, I see it kinda play out 2 ways. 1 is, okay, maybe the comms teams can make a broad faculty podcast to feature people. That could work. Or more often, that conversation just gets pushed off. And, over time, nothing happens in terms of podcasting. Right? So what I’ve been trying to figure out and what I’ve been testing is with the comms team offering kind of 3, yeah, 3 services, maybe to try to help solve this, To help elevate or help the comp team scale their ability to help faculty, we’re exploring and putting out, you know, podcast me trainings for faculty and podcast bookings to go along with that. Because if you don’t have the capacity to have your own show or say you don’t want your own show, that’s okay because you can still get involved in podcast by being a great guest on shows that are very relevant to you who already have existing audiences. So we can help you do that.
Robert Lee [00:35:40]:
The the 3rd route would be, like or the 3rd service option would be producing your own show, in which case, right now, we’re, yes, working with comms teams, but also working directly with the faculty, kind of making faculty influencers even if they don’t like to think of it that way. Like, they could be their own influencer. Brand based off of their books. Now you have a podcast. Build news newsletter out of that. Do your social media out of that. Maybe even create, like, a subscription out of that. Right? Because you have very, very, very, like, many dedicated.
Robert Lee [00:36:24]:
That’s the word. Dedicated followers. Right? Because that that’s a model that we’ve seen to be successful. There’s of the top 10 podcasts, like, one of them is by Andrew Schuberman, who a lot of people know nowadays, professor over at Stanford University in medical school, talks a lot about bio biohacking and good, good practical health tips. And that show, just here’s the context, episodes are about 3 to 4 hours long, But people get through the entire episode, and those episodes have, like, millions of downloads. So there’s definitely interest in it, and it’s a proven, I think, case study for how other faculty can use podcasting for themselves, if not with the university comms team. So that’s what I’m excited about, just figuring out how to how to navigate a space to help, to help elevate more and more really fantastic teachers into the public sphere.
Shiro [00:37:24]:
Yeah. No. And and I love that we went full circle on this because I know you talked about, Freakonomics and how that’s been driving students to wanna take classes with those professors. And I’ve also listened to an episode on nootropics, I think, from Andrew, the guy you just mentioned. I’ve it it just clicked in my head that, yeah, he was also a professor as well. So, like, yeah, if I’m a student or a potential prospective student, that’ll definitely help me drive demand because I think naturally we’re tied to people. And what a great point that you’ve made that you can create these professor influencers. I know they probably don’t wanna be called that, but that’s Yeah.
Shiro [00:37:58]:
Essentially what they’ll become.
Robert Lee [00:38:00]:
Well, I’ll I’ll say one more one more thing about this, which is, when we work directly with the faculty, you know, it does it does leave out the comms team. Mhmm. But what I’ve learned is that, hey. That’s actually not necessarily a bad thing as long as, like, you know, we we create this content with the faculty. The comms team doesn’t have to be involved. They don’t have to spend resources on it, but they can trust that we’ll send them promotional material so they can still use it to promote the institution’s brand and, and and highlight, you know, whatever new initiatives are going on. So it’s interesting because, some comps teams like, we welcome this. You know? It’s like, yeah, we can’t we know we want to, but we know we can’t help the faculty.
Robert Lee [00:38:46]:
But if you can if you can provide us whatever you make, go ahead.
Shiro [00:38:51]:
You know?
Robert Lee [00:38:54]:
And slight and this is cool because I just learned this. So for Huberman’s podcast, the Huberman Lab, he just launched, like, a subscription maybe 4 months ago or so. Mhmm. And people who subscribe, part of those funds goes into Stanford Research.
Shiro [00:39:11]:
Oh, wow.
Robert Lee [00:39:12]:
So there’s also now this kind of fundraising element too that goes along with the, faculty podcasting. And that’s exciting. Back to your original question.
Shiro [00:39:24]:
Yeah. No. This is this is great. And I know we’re just set about time here, but I’m wondering, like, with any of your partners, do you wanna give a shout out on the one podcast that you’re really excited on, whether it’s you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s about to launch, with one of your partners? And, also, where can people learn more about what you’re doing and where people can go to learn more about starting a podcast?
Robert Lee [00:39:45]:
Yeah. I, yeah, I I would call out so we’ve been working with them for about 2 years now. It’s a podcast over at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mhmm. And also in partnership with, Wharton over at UPenn. So it’s called all else equal, and it’s a podcast about, making better business decisions. It’s really interesting, to me in particular because it gets at challenging common assumptions and really pushing you to think a little deeper about whether these assumptions maybe, communicate by mass media or actually true. You know, it gives you the facts and just lets you evaluate yourself, but back to, you know, teaching or providing people a way to practice their critical thinking skill.
Robert Lee [00:40:35]:
So, again, all sequel, you can find it anywhere you listen on podcasts, and that’s by Stanford and UPenn. I you know, overall you know, again, Sheryl, you know, thanks for having me on the show. I’m gonna say if people wanna learn more, we do have learning resources for podcasting, your own podcast guidebooks, and I’m sure you’ll be adding to the show notes. It’s on the university.fm/learning. Also, if we could, I’d love to include a link to some case studies so so that you can also see how the different types of podcasts, benchmark against each other. Like, what kind of results do they get? Because that’s a question I get a lot, which is, hey. Or for people who have their own podcast, I always ask me or they always tell me that they don’t know whether the podcast is doing well or not. And so I think the case studies would be really helpful resources to help people benchmark for themselves.
Shiro [00:41:36]:
Awesome. Yeah. I’ll definitely add those to the footnotes. So I I appreciate you, and I have to check out this all else equal. I just opened it on the tab, so I’m definitely gonna take a look at this podcast. Thank you so much for joining today. It’s been awesome.
Robert Lee [00:41:49]:
Yeah. Appreciate it. Keep it up.
Shiro [00:41:51]:
Thank you,
Robert Lee [00:41:51]:
Robert.
