By Maureen Renzi, vice president - communications

If someone asked you if you know what a podcast is, recent studies indicate that you would likely say yes since 70% of the U.S. population is familiar with the term podcasting. If you were asked “Have you listened to a podcast?”, maybe you would say yes, but it is almost as likely that you would say no since 51% of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast. If you haven’t listened to a podcast yet, it’s time to embrace this new medium. You can start by listening to PICPA’s own podcast, CPA Conversations.

We began CPA Conversations in 2016, and if you read my blogs regularly you know that we have watched this member service continuously grow in popularity, from 10,000 downloads the first year to now close to 100,000 downloads. We at the PICPA thought this milestone would be a good time to ask members what they like about the program and what they would like to hear more about. I encourage you to complete this survey to provide your suggestions as well as give us feedback. The survey results will be shared once we hit our 100,000th download, so please be sure to respond by Aug. 15.

The PICPA is a leader among state CPA societies in embracing podcasts as an effective and valuable member service. Not only do these podcasts provide great access to technical and professional discussions, but they also provide an opportunity for our members to showcase their expertise across the state and the world. (We’ve had unique downloads from as far as Australia!) If you are excluding yourself from this medium because of some perceived age barrier, don’t. Podcasts are not just for kids: 65% of podcast listeners range in age from 25 to 54. You can see a breakdown by age, education, income, and gender here.

At the recent Interchange conference, a national educational program for state CPA society professionals, Bill Hayes, one of CPA Conversations’ program hosts, served on a panel to discuss our podcast experience. The room was packed as other state CPA societies sought guidance on how to incorporate podcasts into their communications and educational strategy. Our other program host, Jim DeLuccia, provided one-on-one guidance to a smaller state society CEO so she could produce her own programs. This demonstrates once again how the PICPA is a leader in providing quality member service through emerging technologies.

What are people listening to? Here are some of the more popular podcasts we produced recently:

• Building a Book of Business in the Modern World 
• Corporate CPAs as Financial Literacy Champions in the Workplace 
• How CPAs Can Advise on Qualified Opportunity Zones
• The Benefits of Benchmarking for School Districts 
• Protect Employee Benefit Plan Information from Cybercriminals
• Fill in the Missing Middle for an Effective Business Succession Plan

These CPA Conversations podcasts provide a glimpse into what members are interested in. We’d like to learn more about what you want to hear: tell us by completing this survey. If you are an avid listener of our podcasts, please encourage others to take a listen. On the Web, there are more than 70,000 active podcasts and 29 million episodes; studies show that the most effective way for a podcast to be found is by personal recommendation. In our recent member survey, people who knew about our podcasts were either satisfied or very satisfied (53%), but only 13% of respondents were aware that we offered them. We would like to see that number grow as we strive to continue to respond to our members’ educational needs.

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