Are you considering starting a blog or a podcast? Both can be great ways to share your thoughts and ideas with the world, but which one is right for you? Here are some factors to consider. Podcasting requires a little more equipment than blogging does. And both blogging and podcasting are ways to share your voice, connect with your people, and make a difference in your world. It's true that audiences have been favoring listening to podcasts over reading blogs. But with the recent adoption of Voice-Activated devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, new opportunities to expand your audience are available for both bloggers and podcasters. Let's take a look:
The pros and cons of starting a blog
Blogging allows you to start a topic and refine the thought a number of times before it goes live. And blogging is very accessible as Google, Bing, and other search engines index your blog for others to find it either through direct keywords or through certain hashtags that have been popular recently.
The cons of blogging include the effort necessary to compose the good text that will delight your audience. Writing takes practice. Another disadvantage is that readers must read the blog articles, which takes dedicated time sitting in front of a computer. Unfortunately, former readers are moving away from reading blogs and toward listening to podcasts because of this time commitment.
The pros and cons of starting a podcast
Starting a podcast on the other hand will allow you to easily share what's going on in your mind. And podcasting can be more accessible than blogging because your audience only needs to listen to your podcast rather than read it. Unfortunately, it can be hard for your audience to find your podcast because there are no popular search tools like Google or Bing. Many podcasters quit before they find their audience (called podfading).
How Voice Assistants help
Voice Assistants help both bloggers and podcasters with their biggest shortcomings. For bloggers, their audience can now listen to their blog posts just by asking "Alexa" or "OK Google". The Voice-Assistant can read blog posts while the listener is driving, cooking, exercising, or anywhere else. If you want an example, you can hear the post titled "How Bloggers Can Expand Their Audience" just by saying "OK Google, ask Create My Voice to read post 42".
For podcasters, Voice-Assistants make it easy for listeners to hear any particular episode just by asking "Alexa" or "OK Google". It allows a podcaster (or their guests) to refer to a specific episode just by letting their audience know to ask for it. As an example, if I wanted you to hear the "Audio Branding" podcast episode where I was interviewed by Jodi Krangle, say "Alexa, ask Audio Branding to Play episode 34".
So, should you start a blog or podcast? The answer is – it depends. What are your goals for sharing your thoughts and ideas with the world? Do you want to make a difference in people’s lives through your writing (blogging)? Or do you want to share your voice and connect with others in an intimate way (podcasting)? Both can be great ways to reach your audience and achieve your goals. And if you want to know more about how to use a Voice-Assistant to reach your audience, sign up for a quick call with us. We’d love to show you how Voice-Assistants can support both mediums and work best for sharing your message!
