Let's look into podcasting for brand building. I asked our PR and growth experts:

How has podcasting evolved to reach diverse audiences and produce various forms of content? What is the key to creative storytelling in podcasts that catches the public's attention? How has podcasting helped bring attention to brands? Why does podcasting offer more when it comes to authenticity?

And here are the experts' insights.

• Now a major driver of growth on video platforms
• Podcasting is a way to bring humanness to a company
• A depth of engagement
• A goldmine for service-based industries
• Podcasting builds brands through trust
• Podcasting allows brands to join existing communities
• It is not broad, it is precise.
• Founders using podcasting unfiltered to build credibility
• People are hooked by the genuineness
• More than half of the USA population listens
• Framed around real-life problems
• Listeners experience a sense of participation
• Today's audience craves the slowed-down, human content.
• Central to omni-channel content strategies
• People remember stories

Now a major driver of growth on video platforms

Emily Reynolds-Bergh, Owner at R Public Relations

"What was once an audio-only medium is now a major driver of growth on video platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Podcast loyalists love to watch their favorite hosts in video format, and clipping long-form podcasts into bite-sized comedic or insightful moments can help podcasters attract new listeners. Because podcasting is off-the-cuff by nature and isn’t often scripted, it reads as authentic. As long as the podcaster knows what their audience likes and wants to learn, they can easily adjust their content to appeal."

Podcasting is a way to bring humanness to a company

Pilar Lewis, Public Relations Associate at Marketri

"Podcasting is a great way to reach since it doesn’t feel like marketing or perfectly tailored content. Instead, it’s a conversation, allowing people to relate. That’s the biggest shift. It’s no longer just experts talking at audiences. People are sharing stories, challenges, and ideas in a way that’s real and relatable…that’s what catches the public’s attention.

The is honesty. Listeners can tell when something’s scripted or surface-level. What draws people in is when someone shares something specific, vulnerable, or just truly them. That’s what sticks. Listeners want to relate. They want to listen to something that answers their questions or what it is they are wanting to learn.

For brands, podcasting is a way to bring humanness to a company. It becomes more than a logo or product. Listeners can see the people behind the company, which helps consumers connect. It offers a platform to unpack ideas and build trust with an audience.

Podcasting offers more authenticity because it strips away the perfectly crafted content. You can hear someone think out loud, laugh, pause, even backtrack. It makes it real."

A depth of engagement

Harry Morton, Podcast Strategist & Founder at Lower Street

"I think podcasting is one of the best ways to reach wider audiences and build loyalty with your customers, future, past, and present. Unlike traditional media, which often casts a wide but shallow net, podcasts allow brands to go deep, regardless of whether you're targeting a niche professional group or a global community of enthusiasts. With over 600 million active listeners globally, the reach is massive, but more importantly, it’s meaningful. What sets podcasting apart is the depth of engagement. A listener might spend 30 minutes or more with your content, during commute, while doing the dishes,or working out, often alone and with headphones on. That’s a kind of undivided attention that’s nearly impossible to achieve with social media, email, or traditional ads, so it creates a level of intimacy and trust that’s incredibly powerful, especially in a time when authenticity is everything. Speaking of authenticity, I really think this is what sets apart great podcasts from those that are just.. okay. It might be nerve-wracking at first, but try to relax and ditch the script. Ask any dedicated podcast listener, and they'll tell you their favorite moments are those unscripted ones that feel genuine - because they are.

Branded podcasts can increase awareness by up to 89%, but more importantly, they build a long-term relationship with your audience that's irreplaceable in today's world when everyone is trying to figure out how to stand out from their competitors. So get that equipment, figure out what your audience wants, and just have fun with it."

A goldmine for service-based industries

Shamil Shamilov, CEO at dNOVO Group

"One of the most effective brand positioning tools we use especially in the legal space. The reason is simple: trust. A 2023 Pew Research study found 49% of podcast listeners believe hosts are more trustworthy than traditional media.

That’s a goldmine for service-based industries like law where credibility sells more than flashy branding. Podcasts allow lawyers to speak directly, tell real case stories (within ethical bounds), and turn complex legal topics into digestible, human content that connects.

Podcasting works because it's long-form, unscripted, and doesn't scream sales. It’s what marketing used to be before clickbait. We’ve turned 30-minute lawyer podcast interviews into months’ worth of content: reels, blog posts, email drips, and local PR. The secret isn’t just in showing up on a podcast it’s in repurposing the narrative. Authentic storytelling becomes a strategy multiplier, not just a medium."

Podcasting builds brands through trust

Liam Austin, Co-Founder & CEO at Talks.co

"I’ve interviewed 400+ guests on my shows, and now I run a platform that connects experts with podcasters looking for great guests.

We now have hundreds of connections happening on the platform. And I believe this is why podcasting has evolved into one of the best visibility tools... because it’s not just content, it’s connection. Hosts and listeners spend 30-60 minutes hearing your voice, your story, your philosophy. That depth is unmatched by blogs or short social clips.

I've found that the key to great podcast storytelling is to drop the pitch. Share real transformation moments. Be vulnerable. What didn't work. What almost broke you. People lean in when you get specific and human. I’ve seen more coaching clients come from podcast interviews than any other content format.

Podcasting builds brands through trust. It’s long-form, intimate, and way more forgiving for imperfect but authentic voices. You’re being heard, and that makes your message land harder.

We built Talks.co because cold-pitching podcasts is broken. Instead, we match guests and hosts based on topic, style, and audience fit... so these high-trust conversations happen more easily and more often."

Podcasting allows brands to join existing communities

Asawar Ali, Automotive Expert & Marketing Manager at Cadillac Accessory

"Over the past 18 months, I've been a guest on 23 business and automotive podcasts, leveraging podcasting as a primary brand-building tactic. This has created over 340,000 impressions and increased our brand awareness by 67% among target markets. My experience in the field combines classic marketing with podcast storytelling to form authentic relationships within niche communities.

Podcasting has evolved from general-topic podcasting to hyper-niche programming that targets specific audiences directly. Within the auto category, I've seen podcasts that evolved from general "car chat" to niche shows such as "Cadillac Performance Enthusiasts" or "Weekend Garage Warriors." This allows brands to speak to listeners at multiple levels of interaction - from casual car enthusiasts to hard-core performance tuners. I've tracked listener demographics across 15 auto podcasts and discovered that niche podcasts have 3.2 times higher levels of interaction than general automotive programming. The idea is that podcasting now allows brands to join existing communities rather than trying to create new ones from the ground up. Podcasting strips away the facade of traditional marketing and offers raw personality and expertise."

It is not broad, it is precise.

Hone John Tito, Co-Founder at Game Host Bros

"We power infrastructure behind some of the largest multiplayer communities out there, and podcasting is one of the few channels where we actually talk like humans, not vendors.

The best change in podcasting is how niche it has become. We run a devops-meets-gaming podcast with only a few thousand listeners per month, but nearly all of them run game studios or server farms. That is not broad, it is precise. And when one of them hears our take on regional failovers or AMD thread pinning, it builds credibility. That is hard to get through paid ads.

What makes it work? No polish. No reads. We share real war stories, drop our guard, and even leave in minor stumbles or disagreements. That rawness builds something you cannot fake. One episode on how we handled a datacenter meltdown in Singapore brought in three clients who said the same thing: “We heard how you think when things go wrong.”

Podcasting gives people a voice before they ever hit your sales page. And in our space where trust comes before specs that voice lands first."

Founders using podcasting unfiltered to build credibility

Jamilyn Trainor, Owner at Muller Expo

"At Müller Expo, we’ve helped launch podcasts as branded experiences making audio into a kind of spatial storytelling. Podcasts started as a niche backroom dialogue, now it has evolved into a medium that exists within bazillions of different formats, with transcribed episodes, social cut-downs, interactive Q&As and may multi-language and cross-generation units. This is the evolving power of audio-first content, in 2025.

The essence of creative podcast storytelling? Texture. It is not just what’s said, rather how it feels. Through ambiance, pacing, imperfections that voice has (which we all put more trust in!). That's often where public leans in. We have seen founders using podcasting unfiltered to build credibility, and brand's building parasocial bonds that no optimized and polished marketing campaign can achieve.

What makes podcasting so valuable is that it freely allows us to be imperfect, which is ironically what builds trust. There’s space for pauses, long-form nuance, and stories that are as rough and long as they need to be. When brands embrace this there really is power to it - deeper reach, extended engagement, audiences that empathize, and simply don’t listen."

People are hooked by the genuineness

Loris Petro, Marketing Manager at Kratom Earth

"Podcasting has taken off, and it is possible to reach audiences in a more personalized direct manner, as never before. From an analysis of close to 50 percent of the American population listening to podcasts and 30 percent listening every month, it is certain that people want something that they can consume at their own pace. What is so awesome about podcasts is that they are very flexible: in search of a niche interest or a popular argument, the format permits the audience to select the item that will really appeal. And with more than 2 million operating podcasts worldwide, producers can be innovative and adventurous and welcome every podcast as long as it is what the audiences want to hear.

People are hooked by the genuineness of something. Podcasts will thrive when they peek through all the noise and bring real, raw perspectives. Listeners are happy to interrelate and not be consumers. And that is the reason as to why true crime, self-help, and business podcasts are doing so well because they are not only about content but about what is important. In the case of brands, the potential is obvious: the right podcast will allow telling your story, developing strong relationships with the customers and establishing long-term loyalty. No more conventional advertisements, with podcasts, you can talk to your audience, using their language and make a difference. This is where the connection really occurs."

More than half of the USA population listens

Jayant Surana, Marketing Manager at Everyday Delta

"Podcasting has reached a new level and it is transforming audience engagement. The potential to reach your target audience has never been as large as the number of active podcasts in the USA exceeds 2 million and more than half of the USA population listens. What is special about podcasts is the fact that they enable hyper-targeted, intimate relations. Be it business or other niche themes, the podcast format is an open conversation that is difficult to interface on TV or in the social media world. It is a lot of intimacy that is hard to match.

Storytelling is the key, to make a difference. What people do not desire is fluff, they want substance, something realistic. Be authentic, present the actual experiences and be conversational. The companies who have exploited this are actually making good gains and engagement rates are increasing by 30 per cent when they move out of the realm of scripted advertising to natural, real stories. This is what podcasts do best: you are going to bond with your audience in a different way due to what other platforms are not able to offer. In case you are willing to make your brand feel human and establish closer contact with your viewers, podcast is your means. Opportunities to be heard, understood and trusted are right at your door, do not lose it."

Framed around real-life problems

Marija Jukic, Digital PR Specialist at Digital Silk

"Podcasting is one of the best ways to make a brand seem real since it lets people talk to each other in a true, unscripted way. At Digital Silk, we've noticed a move away from highly polished ads and toward storytelling formats that make businesses sound more genuine. Podcasting is a great method to do this.

The media is powerful because it is personal and flexible. Podcasts create emotional connections that standard commercials don't. This is true whether it's the founders revealing behind-the-scenes stories or clients talking about how they've changed. We really liked the campaign where we worked with a partner to make a podcast mini-series that used real client case studies to explain complicated subjects like UX strategy and SEO. Those episodes had more engagement and time-on-audio than our usual video material.

The message isn't the only thing that makes a podcast tale interesting; it also needs to be framed around real-life problems and have a story arc that people can relate to. We don't push a brand; instead, we provide a point of view or a lesson, and that's what people connect with.

Podcasting goes beyond standard content formats; it can be used to create blog posts, social media posts, and email campaigns. It's a core of stories that gets more valuable on different platforms.

Most importantly, podcasting is a place where businesses can be open, honest, and even funny, all things that make people loyal in today's attention economy, which is very fractured."

Listeners experience a sense of participation

Dr. Chad-Walding, Co-Founder & Chief Culture Officer at NativePath

"The domain of podcasting has erupted, and it has been disrupting both the content creators and brands. The command of podcasts cannot be ignored with more than 100 million U.S. accounts listening to it. What is the cause of this boom? This is easy: podcasts provide genuine direct access to readers. In contrast to the traditional media, the listeners experience a sense of participation in the talk as opposed to mere consumers. Be it a niche topic or an extensive form of entertainment, podcasts talk to people in a manner that cannot be done the way it is in any other platform. The variety of the forms such as stories, interviews, discussions does not make things boring because creators have unlimited means of entertaining listeners.

To brands, podcasting is not advertisement but it is a trust factor, a connection point. Consider popular podcasts where such services as Squarespace blend with them perfectly. You can get an advertisement that is something one would think would just seem like another episode in the show. That is the effectiveness of the podcast: it can enable brands to talk to their target audience in a manner that is not fabricated. It is not an effort to sell a product; it is the relationship achievable. In podcasting, it is not as you are speaking to the audience, it is like engaging someone in a dialogue. And this is why it is one of the most proficient methods of creating genuine engagement nowadays."

Today's audience craves the slowed-down, human content.

Mimi Nguyen, Founder at Cafely

"Podcasting has become one of the most underrated but powerful channels for brand building, and what makes it especially unique is how flexible the format is. You’re really not limited to just interviews anymore, like I’ve personally seen brands experiment with mini-documentaries, founder diaries, customer spotlight stories, even unscripted chats over coffee. All of these feel more intimate than a blog or a social post ever could.

What I really like about podcast storytelling that I feel makes it work is vulnerability. Listeners aren’t tuning in for polished convos, they want real voices, real stories and unfiltered insight.

I feel like authenticity had a lot to do with this success. Hearing someone’s voice, laugh, even their pauses creates this deeper connection that static content just can’t copy. It’s also why we’re seeing more podcast clips repurposed into Reels and TikToks. One recording can fuel a whole content engine.

So if you’re building a brand with a mission, podcasting is one of the few mediums where you can slow down and be human. And that’s exactly what today’s audience is craving."

Central to omni-channel content strategies

Chris M Walker, Founder at Legiit

"Podcasting today is a gateway, not a container. We repurpose podcast episodes into blog posts, email sequences, short-form video, and social threads. What used to be a niche format is now central to omni-channel content strategies. Podcasts reach people on commutes, at the gym, or while multitasking places traditional content can’t go.

Simplicity and specificity. The best episodes tell real stories not just big wins but also mistakes, lessons, and behind-the-scenes process. Chris shares exactly how we scaled our support team or what we changed after a failed product feature. That openness builds trust fast.

It’s a long-form trust builder. On Legiit, we even created a podcast discovery tool so freelancers can find shows to pitch and be interviewed on.

There’s no editing out personality. Whether you’re polished or a bit raw, podcasting forces clarity and sincerity. I often record without scripts because audiences connect more with conversational tone than overproduced soundbites. That realness is hard to fake and that’s exactly why it works."

People remember stories

Derek Heaven, Podcast Virtual Assistant

"Even though video podcasts have become more popular in recent years (especially with platforms like YouTube and Spotify offering video podcast support), audio still remains the core of podcasting.

From the beginning, audio podcasts have been reaching diverse audiences through apps like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts and other podcast players (professionally called podcatchers).

Audio podcasts started finding their way onto social media. Tools like audiograms helped with this. Audiograms are short audio clips from a podcast episode paired with visual elements like waveforms, captions and graphics. They're especially effective on Instagram, LinkedIn and X. Examples of audiograms: https://getaudiogram.com/gallery/

Audio podcasts also get transcribed (converted into written text) and repurposed in several creative ways:

1) SEO-friendly blog posts. By turning episodes into written articles optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which just means making your content easy for Google to find, podcasters can reach people who are searching for those topics online.

2) Email newsletters. The transcript (or a summary of it) can be used to keep subscribers updated with valuable insights from each episode.

3) Social media content. Key quotes can be turned into LinkedIn posts, carousels or quote graphics for Instagram or X. Infographics can highlight statistics or frameworks shared in the episode.

People pay attention to voices that understand them. If you speak directly to someone’s struggles and offer them real, relatable solutions, they’ll lean in.

You have to bring your perspective to the table and explain why your way of thinking is different and worth listening to.

One major trap to avoid is generic advice.

It’s boring. It sounds cliché.

To be memorable, you have to find ways to say common things in uncommon ways.

Paint pictures in the minds of your listeners and take them into the scene with you. People don’t always remember tips but they remember stories more easily.

Don’t try to be a radio presenter. People connect more with a conversation than a performance.

Let your natural tone, your quirks, your unfiltered opinions come through. The more human you are, the more your storytelling hits."

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