When Audio > Video in Employee Communications

Video is taking over employee communications these days, and justifiably so. People aren’t reading emails, they’ve grown accustomed to consuming news and tutorials on YouTube and Facebook Video and are increasingly expecting the same content from their workplace. Video simply serves a need, but its value only goes so far.

While many companies invest heavily into text and video-based internal communications (e-newsletters, intranet, internal blogs, internal video), audio content is quickly filling the gaps that text and video simply cannot, and is increasingly cheap to create as well. Here are some reasons why you should be looking at audio content instead of text or video. Not in every case, but in many overlooked cases:

1. Your employees spend 52 minutes driving to and from work…everyday: The average American commute is 26-minutes each way and many people are using this time to listen to podcasts, audio articles, and audiobooks to catch them up on news and entertainment. Nearly 15-million Americans listen to podcasts most often in their car. By 2020, nearly every car will be internet connected making digital audio the go-to source for content and entertainment in the car. Instead of having to read an email or watch a video at your desk or at home, increasingly companies are sending audio updates from their CEO or recordings of missed conference calls to their employees while they’re driving and seeking audio content. Audio helps your employees arrive to work ready to go.
2. A 20 minute podcast is considered short, a 5 minute video is considered long: In the age of snaps, gifs, and tweets, podcasts and audio has survived as one of the few mediums that allows for in-depth conversation and longer formats. Asking people to sit and watch or read content for more than 5-minutes is a tall task, however asking people to listen to a 15 to 30 minute podcast or audio clip often fits perfectly into moments like commuting and driving to meetings, walking to the store, cleaning the house, and exercising.
3. Tell different stories: Many internal communicators are trying to find ways to tell different stories, or the same stories across many channels. A quick look at some of the top podcasts in the world, it’s clear that audio serves a unique need and want that video and text simply cannot. The Tim Ferriss show serves up 90min+ interviews with world class performers, digging into nuances in a way that simply could not be done in video or text-based interviews. The audience would tune out. Similarly, highly produced shows like Startup, Radiolab, Masters of Scale, and This American Life are certainly more intricate to make but are vastly cheaper and less time consuming than telling the same complex story in video or text. Audio allows you to explore stories and content you otherwise could not produce with video and text.
4. It’s simply much cheaper and easier: Video can be a very expensive medium and when it comes to internal communication where a direct ROI may not be clear, few companies can justify producing quality video content. A corporate training video, well lit, and edited can cost between $500–$3000/minute and relies heavily on strong performances from people who may not always be comfortable in front of a camera. Of course, video can be quite cheap, we’ve all been on conference calls with web cams. But when it comes to communicating complex information, sharing stories from across the company, or interviewing customers, I’m not sure asking your employees to sit and watch a web cam video is the best use of their time.

Video isn’t going anywhere, and neither is text, but the smartest companies are utilizing audio to bridge silos, inspire employees, and reach them when and where they are otherwise not able to read or watch video.

Check out our white paper, On-Demand Audio: Engaging Employees On-The-Go at PatchFM.com