Podcasting – an effective and cost efficient way to engage young people

In a recent survey of 1600 young people by the National Literacy Trust, 1 in 5 said they listened to podcasts in their free time.

The numbers are even more interesting when you look at usage with traditionally ‘hard to reach’ young people. Within the same NLT survey 17% of young people receiving free school meals said they listened to podcasts and in a recent in-school survey conducted by Fourteen19® with 13-17 year olds, around 10% stated they would prefer information in the form of a podcast.

Young people’s habits changed significantly during lockdown – particularly around how they access information. With the forced shift towards self-led learning, many have since retained these skills and are finding that podcasts can both educate and entertain.

Podcasts are aligned with youth lifestyles and behaviours

For young people, podcasts are perfectly aligned with their lifestyles. They can be easily accessed free of charge via music streaming accounts (Apple and Spotify) as well as a host of other platforms including Google Podcasts and Amazon Music. Podcasts are easily shared too, which means that from receiving a link via text, message or email they can be listening and engaging within seconds.

They are also significantly less intrusive than watching a film or reading a document. Young people can listen to a podcast whilst they are travelling to school or doing homework. In fact evidence shows that this is what a significant number of teens and young adults are doing every day.

A win-win activity for young people and organisations

Obviously, no one is going to listen to your podcast is you are simply reading out the text from a flyer or pages from your website. The content that you produce has to be interesting – and relevant- to a young person.

For example, if you are a college looking to recruit students, your podcast could feature subject areas as well specific focuses on pastoral support and extra curriculum activities.

Having a podcast enables organisations to become leaders in their field and develop an incredibly powerful, one-to-one relationship with listeners. This perceived ‘authority’ demonstrates credibility with target audiences and further enhances the experience.

By owning a specific ‘space’, you are able to build a direct communication channel which then provides an opportunity to build ‘brand awareness’ and ensure messages are heard and clearly understood.

The podcast can then be used as a gateway to signpost to secondary activity such as a social media channel or data collection platform.

For example: Our sister music podcast generated 33K Twitter impressions and 3,000 profile visits in its first month from a highly-engaged target audience.

So how do you start if you have never done this before?

Thankfully you don’t to worry about this as Fourteen19® can provide everything that you need to get your podcast available on all the leading platforms.

We can support you develop your podcast episodes, research guests, as well as host, record, edit and publish it. We can also help you market it to your target audience.

Have you seen/heard our Exploring Careers podcast which promotes careers to teens and young adults? Click here for more information

The first thing you need to do is call us, drop us an email or contact us via the website.