Avoid reporting fatigue and bring your sustainability story to life
Written by Rachel Gatley, Associate – Sustainability Podcasting, Audere
Is your sustainability story worth a listen? Would anyone ‘like or subscribe’ to find out more about the work your organisation is doing on environmental and social issues? Or does it increasingly feel like you are churning out the same content that every other organisation is too?
Sustainability communications is no longer a nice to have but an essential activity. It is vital work to ensure that all stakeholders, from analysts to investors, customers to consumers, employees to the c-suite, are aware of and engage with your work in this space.
But thanks to the almost weekly developments in reporting requirements, sustainability comms has now become a Herculean task and increasingly, sustainability teams and their comms colleagues are drowning not waving. This has led to some organisations losing sight of the importance of two-way conversations and instead getting stuck on a one way ‘broadcast’.
Enter a plethora of annual reports and website pages featuring reams of copy, clever designs, images of smiling people in hard hats on squeaky clean construction sites and identikit drone shots of forests, oceans and mountains.
These beautifully produced pieces of content seek almost universally to explain why an organisation is ‘committed to people & the planet’ but take up huge volumes of time and even larger budgets to produce.
So why does it feel like many of these reports are perhaps starting to merge into one? And is anyone (other than comms, sustainability teams and analysts) actually reading them? In short, are we all experiencing the beginning of reporting fatigue?
If so, then how can a business get past the required and often mundane reporting and back into the kind of creative sustainability comms that inspires hearts and minds?
The answer, in our view, is storytelling. And more specifically, podcasting
Tell me a story…
As content specialists, Audere has been helping clients to tell their stories for more than a decade. Whether partnering with Audere’s own show the c-suite podcast or creating own branded podcast series, we help clients present information about their business in a way that is personable, inspiring and interesting.
Storytelling is an approach as old as time itself, with its origins not in graphic design (cave paintings excepted!) but in sitting round a fire and spinning a yarn. Which when you think about it isn’t very far removed from the format of a podcast, is it?
And while we obviously use more modern technology than a flint and steel to spark conversations, our client’s stories could just as easily be told around a fire as they are a microphone.
A great story can be told by anyone, anywhere, but especially on a podcast. From CEO to employee, recorded either online or in person, at an event or in a studio. Everything works because it’s the content that matters, not the context.
So, how do you make a great podcast and tell a great story? Below are some top tips:
- Who – Audience
Successful stories are never designed to appeal to ‘everyone’ but instead tailored to individual needs. Think carefully about who your audience is, what matters to them, and where and when you might be reaching them (do they listen at home, at work, in the gym?). Consider the right tone of voice and content.
- When – Timelines and format
Are you attending a conference or event, and want to record a podcast on your stand to capture delegates? Is there an awareness week coming up for your sector you want to create new content for? Is there an internal launch of a new sustainability initiative that could do with some new content for support. Also, is this a one-off short story (a show) or an epic with many chapters (a series)?
- What – Topic
Popular stories for podcasting explore ‘pain points’ or interests that chime with the listener. Career or financial success, health and wellbeing, etc. Think about your sustainability delivery and consider your audiences. What is it that you are doing that could inspire your listener to act?
- Where – Reach
Consider how sustainability podcasting could form part of your content strategy. Do you have any existing channels that your key audiences follow? Are you going to use social media, websites, or an existing company podcast series as a platform? How are you going to make sure your story is heard?
- Why – Objectives
Do you want to educate your audience? Shift perceptions? Inspire a call to action? Encourage better understanding of a sustainability issue? Consider how you can place these objectives at the centre of your story.
For more on Audere’s sustainability credentials, see our Sustainability Podcasting page.
If your organisation is keen to find out how podcasting can help to bring your sustainability communications to life, get in touch and we can tell your story together.
