What makes a podcast worth listening to?

That is an overarching question we’ll be asking as we kick off Season 5 of the Human Insight Podcast. After four seasons, we're reaching out to listeners to see what's working and what needs improvement.

In this episode, we interview Dan Misener, Director of Audience Development at Pacific Content. Pacific Content helps brands—such as Ford, Charles Schwab, Adobe, Mozilla and many others—develop and produce award-winning podcasts.

If anyone knows what makes a great podcast, it will be Dan and the team at Pacific. 

We also asked avid podcast listeners from around the world what they like and dislike about podcasts; whether that is show notes; how they discover new shows; whether they leave a rating or review and many other questions.

We’ll be sharing those insights with you throughout the season. 

In his conversation with Janelle Estes, Chief Insights Officer at UserTesting, Dan explains the “Only we” strategy for creating a podcast. And it is advice you could apply to just about any endeavor. 

“Only we is the idea that podcasters of all stripes should make the show only they are uniquely suited to make,” Dan says. “What is the show only we could make? What is the show no one else could make even if they wanted to?”

Sometimes the “only we” is the access you have; it could be a point of view or a world view; it could be that you’re the subject matter expert on a particular topic. 

“Could someone else make this show and would it be the same?” Dan said. “If the answer is yes, I don’t think your show is designed especially well.”

Listen to the episode to get more insights from Dan. In addition to expanding on the “Only we” strategy, Dan responds to UserTesting contributors sharing their thoughts on how they find a podcast, and whether they leave reviews. You can watch the videos, too! See and hear what podcast listeners say about how they discover podcasts, and whether they leave reviews.