Messaging, music, and mailbags: How technical design and entertainment boost the performance of environmental organizations’ podcasts

The production and consumption of podcasts have grown exponentially since their introduction in 2004. As organizations increasingly use this social media tactic to reach their stakeholders, two theoretical frameworks – the theory of entertainment persuasion and the PodCred framework – can be used to create more meaningful messages for the podcasts’ audiences. Through a content analysis of 67 environmental podcasts, this study examined the extent to which environmental podcasts developed by organizations incorporate seven distinct communication strategies and design techniques. The study found that while inclusion of these strategies and techniques has statistical correlation to podcast popularity, organizations are only modestly incorporating them into their podcasts.

► Environmental podcasts with higher popularity ratings incorporated more technical and production elements of the PodCred framework.
► Podcasts only moderately incorporated a variety of message strategies into the delivery of their content.
► Podcasts demonstrating openness and transparency in organizational affiliation also rated more strongly in terms of user popularity.