IT Professionals: Embrace Audio Content

Thank you to all regular readers. If we're not connected, be sure to follow to never miss any of the five articles about technical writing that I publish every week, Monday through Friday at 1:00 pm Eastern/10:00 am Pacific. I never miss an article drop—and neither should you!

?? Listen to the sibling podcast where hosts Daphne and Fred provide insightful analysis and additional details on Amazon Music , Apple Podcasts , iHeartRadio , and Spotify .

The recent launch of my new podcast has gotten me thinking about the art and science of podcasting and, in the bigger picture, the importance of audio resources for IT professionals, documentation specialists, and marketing folks.

We used to call a preference for audio or text a "learning style." However, because much content these days on social media blurs the lines between education and entertainment, let's call this choice "consumption style" instead.

Every consumer of your content has a different consumption style. For most of us, it's a blended approach involving text, audio, and video. So I suppose we could end this article right here and simply advise readers to embrace a truly multimodal approach to the development and publication of their documentation and marketing assets. Done.

Reach a Larger Audience

But there's more to this issue. The two biggest reasons to adopt audio are the inclusion of additional social segments and use case scenarios and the resulting connection with a larger audience. Tens of millions of busy professionals listen to podcasts or other audio resources during times when they cannot read text or watch video, such as during driving or when exercising.

Audio resources also effectively reach specific niche audiences, including people with dyslexia and the blind. With an estimated 5-20 percent of Americans having some level of dyslexia (that's 15-44 million people) and two million people suffering blindness (with 12 million over the age of 40 suffering vision loss that falls short of blindness), it behooves content creators to adopt audio. Particularly when modern tech tools are making it so easy to do so.

Together, these three distinct audiences form a group of considerable size. Personally, I would embrace audio if only to reach those who prefer to listen during their daily work commute or when at the gym. It's that big an opportunity. But the ability to practice true inclusion and be consumable by millions of visually challenged individuals and those with cognitive disorders that make reading a challenge is low hanging fruit for any company. From solopreneurs to midsize players to giant enterprises, audio makes sense.

Audio: Low Production Burden

The ease with which IT professionals and technical writers can create audio content is becoming much greater. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools now can take what used to be a development effort spanning multiple days (or at least many hours) and accomplish it in only minutes.

AI tools like Google's NotebookLM can be fed text and quickly produce seamless and fluid podcast-like audio. Such tools, although in their infancy, have become so powerful that millions of IT communicators are now leveraging them to add audio to their text to increase their reach. Watch for competing products from major tech companies (including Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and X) and the eventual ability to dial in host characteristics such accent, gender, mood, pace, personality, and overall tone.

Good Luck

Most content creators have not seriously considered the topic of inclusion and expanding the audience they reach. The introduction of audio assets to one's documentation efforts, social media activity, and marketing assets is a quick win. This strategy benefits not only content creators, but also those with physical or psychological challenges that may prevent them from consuming your text resources.

When you look at the hard numbers and potentially low effort involved in crafting compelling audio resources, failure to pursue this path seems almost daft.

But that's just my opinion. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

— Curt Robbins, Senior Technical Writer

P.S.: I'm currently taking on new clients. I enjoy helping companies with their documentation and communications strategy and implementation. Contact me to learn about my reasonable rates and fast turnaround.