– When it comes to the number of listeners, the numbers are currently low, says Jan Harald Tomassen. He is a senior communications consultant at the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark, and creates the podcast «The Administrator Podcast» A podcast The State Administrator chooses to spend time and money on, which reaches a few hundred people a week. – We do this to try to reach out with information on more channels than via our website. Jan Harald Tomassen, Communications Adviser to the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark. Photo: The state administrator in Troms and Finnmark Will use new tools Tomassen says the podcast is made by the communications department, and that no large resources are used. It takes a day to make each episode. In the podcast you can hear about everything from snowmobiling to cultural landscapes. – We reach the municipalities, and we reach the population. The only thing missing is that we do not use different tools to try to reach people where people are. That is why we also use both Facebook and YouTube, says Tomassen. Many podcasts – low listening Podcasts have become extremely popular, and the best podcasts in this country have hundreds of thousands of listeners. For example, news’s ”Updated”, which right now sits at the top of Podtoppen, has over 300,000 plays in the last week. news has Podtoppen to find podcasts made by bodies, agencies or state-owned companies that are financed by the public sector. Many are made, but most have few plays. An example is Innovation Norway, which has “Innopodden”, a podcast that was streamed 943 times last week. – It is part of our communication business, and provides a nice, informal opportunity for understanding with the opportunity to go more in depth, writes special adviser Bernt Ellingensen in an e-mail. Nina (Stiftelsen Norsk institutt for naturforskning)’s “Naturligvis” has on average had between 200-400 listeners in recent weeks, while Statens Vegveien’s “Snakk i vei” has a few hundred listeners per episode. The State Administrator in Møre og Romsdal also has a podcast with a few hundred listeners. Do you listen to podcasts? Yes, very fond of it! Occasionally. No never! Show result Believes they benefit greatly from podcasts Trøndelag County Municipality’s podcast has 120 plays. – We focus on podcasts because we want to tell about all the exciting things that are happening in Trøndelag county municipality, says Håvard Zeiner in Trøndelag county municipality. Nor do they think they spend a lot of money or resources on the project, and say that they still make ordinary online cases as well. – In short, we see great benefit from the podcast we make. It takes less and less time to make because we become more experienced and efficient in the way we work, says Zeiner. – Do you think this is a good use of taxpayers’ money? – Yes, we believe this is money well spent because a podcast like this helps to inform the inhabitants of Trøndelag about what the county municipality is working on. We also regularly evaluate the effect of our communication measures. The county podcast in Trøndelag had 116 listeners last week. Photo: Fylkeskommunen i Trøndelag Gets praise – If one is afraid that unnecessary skate money is used, it is much cheaper to produce podcasts than to make video campaigns or advertising campaigns to reach out with the same message, says Tine Eide. She is a university lecturer at Oslo Met and knows most about podcasts. She believes there are many benefits to public bodies and companies trying in new ways to reach people. – Maybe the employees become better at talking about what they do when they make podcasts. Maybe it becomes clearer to them what they are doing, maybe it is about making the language they use better, so that in other contexts it is easier for us citizens to understand? It would have been great! Still, Eide believes that there is one thing in particular that one must work on in order to reach more than a few hundred. University lecturer at Oslo Met, Tine Eide. Photo: OsloMet Must be relevant – They must become better at telling stories. Eide says all topics can be interesting and exciting, as long as it is told in a way that makes us listeners recognize us and make us feel something. – Then it does not help that two people sit in a room with background noise and talk a little too far from the microphone with an abstract language about something the listener does not experience as relevant to him. These are the most popular podcasts in Norway in week 25 Photo: Podtoppen Good tool – I think it is absolutely necessary that the communications industry thinks differently to reach out with information to its users, says acting editor of KOM24, Ynge Garen Svartdal. KOM24 is an online newspaper for the communications and PR industry, and Svartdal thinks they are thinking right when they move away from more traditional ways of reaching out. – In today’s particularly fragmented media landscape, one must simply be creative in order to reach their target groups. He nevertheless adds that he does not think the figures for either the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark or Trøndelag County Municipality are particularly impressive. – Worth the try Some podcasts go a little better. The latest episodes of Vinmonopolet have listener numbers between 1500 and 4200. The Armed Forces’ podcast “Our stories” also has several thousand listeners, as does the Norwegian Directorate of Health, which has produced several podcasts. Although “Forvalterpodden” in Troms and Finnmark still lacks a large audience, communications consultant Tomassen believes that it is important to try new ways to reach the population. – I think many public companies try different ways to communicate, simply because the flood of information is great and old-fashioned newspaper ads are long outdated. – In light of the fact that this is a completely minimalist podcast in terms of resource use. In a somewhat “try-and-fail” stage, we think it is at least worth the try!
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The state administrator makes podcasts with few listeners – an important form of communication, according to an expert – news Trøndelag
