Social Chain is plotting a podcast takeover with shows set to launch for each of the marketing agency’s most popular social media pages.
Game Byte, which focuses on video games old and new, is expected to be the first to launch. Game Byte has almost six million followers on Facebook and significant followings on Instagram and YouTube as well as a website.
Charlie Perry, head of audio at Media Chain, said the final touches are being put to a dedicated studio in the firm’s Manchester headquarters.
Perry is in charge of all podcasting concepts at Social Chain, although she is not involved in producing CEO and co-founder Steve Bartlett’s personal podcast ‘The Diary of a CEO’, which is set for a second season soon.
“We’ll be able to get our brands into the studio such as Sporf, Student Problems, Love Food and create a podcast for them,” she told BusinessCloud.
“We’re working with the brands at the minute to come up with their formats. We’ve got Game Byte ready.
“Hopefully by the end of this year we’ll have launched a couple of them and by the beginning of next year they’ll be in full flow and we’ll be working on new ones.”
Perry says it is important that the brands have a unique identity and stay true to their original concepts when coming up for a podcast formula.
“It’s safe to say that if you follow Sporf, you like football – but there are so many ‘Football Rambles’ already out there is would be silly to try to infiltrate that as a new body because they’ve been going for so long,” she explained.
“You have to differentiate your podcast from the others, whether that’s through the talent that you use, the guests you get on or the general types of conversations you have.
“Should it be the funny things about the players that have happened that week – or is it ultra-analytical?”
More traditional brands are moving into the podcast space, which Perry says is a good thing – provided they “put the podcast before the brand”.
“It’s not good when a brand makes a podcast just because it’s the new thing. The brand has to care about what the podcast is, what the conversation is, the format of it, the regularity of it,” she said.
“The important thing is to put the podcast before the brand – to use the brand as a signpost to the podcast, rather than just an hour long advert for its products. Nobody wants to listen to that.
“The listeners are people who are willing to go that bit further with the brand – to take something more from them. Podcasts can be entertaining and funny, but really education as well.
“Once you’ve got your audience captured, they want to hear something of value – and brands need to know what that value is with their audience.”
Social Chain is interested in finding partners to work with them and use the studio. “It’s going to be a really good space for people to collaborate and create some interesting audio,” said Perry.
“We want the space to be somewhere where we create some insane podcasts and people know us for that.”
Away from Social Chain, Perry has a weekly skincare podcast with best friend Amy Wall – Birthday Skin – which they launched after becoming frustrated at the amount of conflicting advice they were given when it came to looking after their skin.
“It’s almost impossible to walk into Boots and know what to buy and whether it’s the right thing for you,” she said. “We decided that we could do the research and get that information across in an understandable way for people to listen to it.”