¶ Nicholas and Elissa discuss the power of video for podcasting
>> Nicholas: Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Headliner podcast. We're your hosts, Nicholas and Elissa, and we're here to keep you in the loop on all the things you can do to promote your podcast. So, Elissa,
¶ One-third of podcast listeners are on YouTube
what are we talking about today? >> Elissa: Well, Nicholas, we actually just had a blog post come out about the power of video for podcasting. So I think that we should also probably talk about it some. >> Nicholas: Um, you know, yeah, that sounds good to me. So let's just, let's dive right into it, shall we? >> Elissa: Sounds swell. >> Nicholas: So, so why do we. What's so important about video for podcasting?
>> Elissa: Well, if you're in podcasting, if you're subscribed to any industry newsletters or anything, you've. There's a pretty good chance that you've heard about video and podcasting. Um, YouTube actually just released a whole report about how they had over it was a billion views of video podcast, um, in the month of January alone. So that's kind of an ins main stat to start it off.
>> Nicholas: Yeah. >> Elissa: Um, but really, I mean, and Even outside of YouTube, um, social video, we see over 71% of podcast listeners actually have discovered a podcast through social video. So, I mean, those two stats alone, to me are pretty compelling to kind of point out the importance that video has for podcasting and just kind of the opportunity that it also presents, um, podcasters as well.
>> Nicholas: That makes sense to me. I mean, I know podcasting has very traditionally been seen as like almost an extension of radio. Right. It's an audio driven medium and all of that. And it still is, you know, the words are ultimately what matters there. But it sounds to me like video is kind of coming in and just expanding the discoverability of that audio, which is obviously a cause that, like, we here in Headliner, like, are intimately familiar with. Right.
Like, that's our whole thing, making audio visual. That's. That's the line we like to use. Um, so that makes sense to me and like, it feels like a natural extension of what, you know, that analogy. I just said podcasting is an extension of radio. Well, you know, just speaking as the film nerd who studied, like, the history of film and TV and stuff, that's what they called television to movies back in the day. And that's what they called television to radio. It was an
extension of that. A lot of early TV shows were just radio programs with pictures. And we're kind of seeing the same thing in podcasting now, where it is just a lot of those audio shows we love, but with pictures now of people sitting there with Microphones or even. >> Elissa: I've seen like a lot of people use the AI to make like avatars and stuff. That's kind of a cool way to circumvent that whole. I don't want to get on camera.
I don't want to get on camera. I'm here on camera, I'm doing it. >> Nicholas: Well, we'll just be back next week with our vtuber avatars. Like these cartoon characters as us. No, um, I've seen that same exact thing. And it's crazy what you can do now with tech. Yeah. I mean you can just use like filters on a webcam and animate yourself as a character and it's still video, it still counts. So that stat you mentioned about, I think it was 1 billion views on podcasts on YouTube or something.
>> Elissa: Wow, that's insane. >> Nicholas: Well, that's kind of like there's another stat I've seen thrown around that I'm totally not reading off our spec doc for this. I think it's something to the effect of like, hey, did you know that one third of podcast listeners are on YouTube, which is, you know, it's obviously a video native
platform. So it does kind of just point out like, hey, if you're a podcaster and you're struggling to get more people listening, where you just want, maybe you're not struggling, maybe you're cream of the crop and you're on top and you're just like, hey, I want to get even more people. Yeah, um, get on YouTube if you're not already and consider organic video. >> Elissa: Exactly. I mean, YouTube, it really does kind of open up to more of a global audience. So a lot
of. And again, you've mentioned the idea of kind of discoverability. We know that YouTube is connected to Google, so it actually kind of hasn't a lot of built in search features that podcast listening apps may not necessarily have. So they have a lot more advanced capabilities to kind of help push content to people that may not necessarily be looking to listen to a podcast specifically, but they're like, oh, this video. To me, video is always a little bit easier to kind of, um,
retain. And there's actually a lot of data out there to suggest that people actually are 95% more likely to retain a message if it has some type of visual component, whether that's going to be, um, video or kind of even just an animated something. Um, but regardless, sure. >> Nicholas: I mean, we're visual learners is the idea.
>> Elissa: Exactly, exactly. So YouTube kind of having the ability to search, then also kind of this like, oh, that's a little bit better than maybe reading an article or something. Um, it's a little bit more appealing to people, but also it has the global scale to it. So that's one really big advantage that video kind of has. Living in YouTube specifically.
>> Nicholas: Yeah, no, I mean, that makes perfect sense to me and I think it kind of speaks to this idea of like, I feel like maybe some podcasters may be apprehensive towards switching to video because it's like, oh, it's a whole new medium and there are a lot of things you kind of have to pick up when you do that. But one thing that does hopefully make it easier to consider is the fact that like, your average listener isn't going to be bothered by a switch
to video. When, uh, a lot of people are searching for data,
¶ Headliner is focusing on taking podcasts and creating social videos
especially on like search engines, obviously they're not searching for a podcast, they're looking for the answer. And unfortunately, as we were just discussing. Well, not even unfortunately, but as we were just discussing, video is a lot more like native to that. It's easier to get an idea across, which means it's going to track better on a search engine.
And yeah, I mean, to that end, look, we've already been talking about YouTube, but we didn't even talk about like the other place where video gets to live. Social media. You know, social videos. Another subject that we here at Headliner are like maybe just a little crazy about. A little, little, slightly be it for me to say, and I can't speak for you, but I've woken up in a cold sweat thinking about social videos once every so often. >> Elissa: Sure, totally.
>> Nicholas: It totally happens. I just, I wake up in a cold sweat and I'm like, I need to transcribe some videos, guys. Anyway, um, this is, this is for me to work out with a doctor on my own time. So let's just. >> Elissa: I was going to say, um, anyways, we digress. Um, but to that point, yes, social video, of course, Headliner, that's kind of our bread and butter. That's where we got our start, is taking podcasts, creating social video, known as audiograms out of them.
Um, regardless of how you want to leverage video, of course, if you want to stay as an audio first creator, you can still leverage video with audiograms. A lot of tools, Headliner, that can help you do that. And then there's also, if you're willing to explore video or make that switch altogether, um, again, a lot of tools out there to help you create social clips from the full length episode. Headliner, Other tools out there as
well. Um, but kind of thinking about it, there are a lot of advantages that video really does have. Whether it's going to be full length content on YouTube or little short clips, YouTube shorts or on social media. Um, just really great touch points and kind of additional ways for people to discover outside of, of course, your already existing audio. First content on podcast platform specifically.
>> Nicholas: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And then as far as like what these videos can be, they don't have to be these like very elaborately staged and lit and edited things. They can literally be what this is
a zoom call. You know, um, so long as you're really just kind of talking on camera with a microphone, you're, you're doing more than enough, you know, that is, I don't remember the exact stat, but a stat was actually published like just a week or two ago about how many podcasts are recorded remotely and how they're recorded remotely. And like far and away, Zoom is still like number one, I think on that list.
>> Elissa: So, yeah, I mean, it is free. Like most people, I think the average length of a podcast, and don't directly quote me on this, I think it's 27 minutes is kind of that average sweet spot that we see out there. >> Nicholas: I always assume 45, but maybe that's just what I listen to. >> Elissa: I don't know, I could be very wrong. Um, Zoom, I believe their free platform allows you to record up to 40 minutes of video content. Um, and that's really fine for podcasts,
especially if you're going longer. Then, you know, maybe consider upgrading. If you're keeping it under that 40 minute mark just for the raw recording, you're probably fine to just stick with that. And I also kind of want to, while I'm on my soapbox, stay on it. Um, the quality of your video, like Nicholas said, it doesn't necessarily matter as much to your listeners. What's really important to listeners is kind of this idea of
authenticity. So they're seeing your emotions or seeing hand gestures, whatever you're doing. It's kind of an extra way for people to connect with what is actually being said. But it just really kind of enhances your message and your message is still what is going to be most important and what people are going to remember again, regardless of how you are recording. But having that video component again just kind of takes it up a little notch. >> Nicholas: Um, yeah, no, I mean, I'm
completely in agreement with you. Authenticity is everything. Uh, you know, like, look at us right now. We're literally just recording this on zoom. Because that's what a podcast is, right? A lot of podcasts are exactly that. And it's fine to be authentic. You don't need a dedicated studio space. A simple setup that is functional is more than good enough. You can record it in your home, office, your bedroom. I know a lot of podcasts like, um, oh, my gosh, what's it called?
>> Elissa: Fake. >> Nicholas: Ah, Doctors, Real Friends, the Scrubs Rewatch Podcast during the pandemic. Uh, they recorded it literally, like, in their closet. So they would record these episodes in a closet space. It wasn't video, but you can literally do that. You can just record a podcast wherever you want, so long as there's a bit of light and a camera. And if you don't want people to see your home for whatever reason,
just blur it out. You know, speaking for myself here, and the reason it's blurred out is because I've. I haven't discovered a broom yet. I'm unaware of what that is as a concept, so I'm just blurring out the background. But, um, look, it's simple, and it's to the point, you know, you're. You're making video so that you can get more people to listen to your podcast. And when you remember that objective kind of takes some of the pressure off of making that video perfect.
So, yeah, on the front of social video, the one that we're familiar with, there's a lot you can do, obviously. So let's say you've recorded your podcast, you have this full video thing. You gotta post clips on social media. It takes little to no time. Cough, cough. Because we can help you with that. But, uh, you know,
it's like the easiest way to get people to check out your show. You post a clip on social media, it gets all viral on the TikTok buzzword insert here, and then they're listening to your show. Ple. Please, Elissa, save me. Help flesh this out a little bit. >> Elissa: Um, yeah, so TikTok, obviously. I personally, I see a lot of podcasts on my personal, like for you page on my TikTok, I'm not searching for these at all. I mean, it's just kind of coming up in, like,
¶ Having social media adds an additional touchpoint for podcast discovery and engagement
natural algorithm and kind of content recommendations. So it's not even necessarily that you are trying to reach and obtain a listener. It's also kind of an awareness play, which in marketing, that's kind of this idea of, I know I'm doing something. I don't know what's working, but it's working. Those are kind of one of Those things. So having social media and being, um, just out there, are you going to see an immediate jump in your listenership? It's very unlikely. Um, but you're
building a type of community. You're getting your podcast out there, kind of getting familiarity with it. And especially if you have these clips, people are like, oh, that's great. They like it or they at least watch it. Now these algorithms are able to kind of recognize it and say, okay, X person did this. They're likely to enjoy this type of content. Let me continue to recommend this page specifically, um, to this person or
similar types of content. Um, then you get kind of the cross pollination of, hey, there's other creators like you that have this type of content. So then you get into all these people's algorithms and now you're getting in front of people. People are like, okay, I'm really enjoying that. And that's when you're going to start getting that community. You'll likely start to see some listens trickle in, some followers, all that kind of stuff. So it
really builds upon each other. It's not an immediate, it's a marathon. >> Nicholas: Not a race kind of marathon, not a sprint. It is a race, still a race. Marathons are in fact a race. >> Elissa: They are a race. Uh, yeah, they're not fun races, but they are races. >> Nicholas: Speak for yourself. >> Elissa: Yeah, okay. Um, but yeah, so I, I never kind of want to set the expectation of, hey, you make social video, you're going viral. I never want to set that
expectation with people. We've definitely been making social clips for years. Uh, we've gotten some clips to have a few thousand views. To me, I'm like really happy with that. Sometimes we only get like six. That just happens. So you kind of need to maybe assess the type of content that you're making. Um, look at what you are doing. If you're like, hey, I really want to get all in on this video idea, then that's when you can start kind of
assessing the content. But to be quite honest, even the ones that have six, like, that's six people that wouldn't have seen this podcast in my opinion. So I'm happy with that. >> Nicholas: That's such an interesting point because it's super easy to like only look for virality online. But that's still like the six people example you just gave. Yeah, that is six people that didn't know
about something. And I feel like even just like 20 or 30 years ago, like the equivalent of us back then would have been like six people listened to My podcast, like, that's crazy. That's awesome. You know, six people is a lot in a lot of ways. If it's six quality listeners, it's six quality listeners. >> Elissa: And it's a free way to get these people. I mean, if you. >> Nicholas: What did it take? You just posted it on Instagram and put a snarky caption on it.
>> Elissa: Like, I hate that. You know, it was snarky. >> Nicholas: I mean, I'm just working with what you give me. But, you know, like, yeah, it's six people and I don't remember the exact quote. I'm probably getting the number wrong. But I remember reading years ago, something to the effect of you only need 100
¶ What makes for a good post on social media depends on your audience
dedicated listeners to be like, set as a podcaster. It's a hundred people who are willing to like, stop what they're doing when you post a new episode. Or if you have merch, who are willing to support you with merch. That is like kind of endgame for a lot of people. And that's great. So, yeah, on, uh, the front of like, what you can post, obviously, clips from your podcast, but let's get more specific, shall we? What, um, do you think makes for like, a good post on social media?
>> Elissa: Um, I mean, it's really going to kind of depend on your show and the type of audience you want to target. So for instance, we. It's you and I, we sit in the Zoom call. I always just use headliners video clipping tools. It has this lovely little auto framing feature. So it will just show like our video, which is a talking head style. So it's just literally what you see here, talking heads. It's just our little faces talking. Zooms
in on those. And then as the speakers change, it'll kind of swap back and forth. It has some captions. Um, that's probably the most popular style of video that you're going to see out there. Um, I had mentioned the avatar style stuff before, so there's all sorts of tools out there. I think even in Zoom, you could honestly turn on like an avatar filter if you can do that. >> Nicholas: I'm m. Pretty sure we had like Jesse or somebody do that once on our, our older version of this podcast.
>> Elissa: Rest in peace to the pod pod. >> Nicholas: Yeah, Rest in peace to the pod pod. >> Elissa: But yeah, but yeah, but yeah, that's a form. That's like a subset of talking heads. We, um, mentioned the AI generated stuff. It's kind of hard to ignore that now. Um, you can very easily create video just from text prompts, audiograms, of course. It's going to be kind of the easiest way to create video from a podcast. Um, doesn't require
anything for you to. It doesn't require you to change anything. So especially if you have a very established process, you know how you are going to podcast, you're doing audio purely, but you're like, man, I really want to leverage the power of video. Audiograms are going to be a really great way to kind of start that process or even just fully use audiograms only for video. Like, I know, um,
Freakonomics. They are going to be kind of one of the biggest people that I can think of, at least right now, that use audiograms purely on YouTube to get their podcasts out there. And I mean they've definitely seen a lot of success, um, with podcasting on YouTube just using audiograms. >> Nicholas: Yeah. And then as far as the content of these clips themselves, like it's kind of self explanatory stuff. It's what you think is going to grab people.
Hooks, the emotional moments where maybe you're giving an impassioned plea because everyone loves impassioned pleas on the Internet or just like even if you have the kind of podcast that facilitates it, uh, you disagreeing with your co host and you guys kind of bickering, that always does. Well, we like friction, I'm noticing on the Internet. Call me crazy, but we enjoy a bit of friction online. So stuff like that, it's going to grab people, it's going to hold their attention. More
informational stuff. If you're a data driven podcast or you're talking about like issues or something, just actually putting the lead there and being like, hey, this is about X, Y and Z. And this is what we thought about it as. Your clip is great. Um, also the idea of something like a curiosity gap, right. Which is like, hey, maybe you just uh, maybe you leave a little bit of context out in your clip and you can kind of entice people to continue checking it out. That's an
idea. The analogy I always use is, um, look at your podcast as like a full album, 45 minutes on vinyl, on wax, whatever. This is the full story. And then your clip is the promotional single. It's the four minute segment of that 45 minute piece that's like great and will grab people and all that stuff. And then as far as like clip length goes, just go dependent off of first the platforms. Right. Uh, TikTok, you can only upload. Does TikTok have a length
limit? I think it's like 10 minutes. But most of them are like a minute or less. >> Elissa: Yeah, TikTok is one of those funny platforms, so it's going to vary kind of depending on your level of creator. >> Nicholas: Oh, okay. So if you're like verified, maybe you get longer videos or. >> Elissa: I think so. I'm. And I'm pretty confident
in this. Not 100% when it bet money on it or anything, but I do think that TikTok, in some instances you can do 30 minutes of video, but again, I think you have to be verified. You have to have like all sorts of stuff met. So I would say for the average person probably looking at a solid 60 second clip, I would say is probably where you're at. >> Nicholas: Probably like the longest you want to go. >> Elissa: Yeah. Which. And I think that's uploading into
TikTok. You can only upload one minute. I think if you're recording in the app, then that's when you can start getting closer to Those like longer 10 minute type clips. >> Nicholas: Gotcha. Yeah, that might be it. >> Elissa: Uh, but I think that's the distinction. >> Nicholas: With that makes sense. And I think also like, look, just because you have 60 seconds doesn't mean you need
to make something 60 seconds long. If your clip is really good for 30 seconds, just use the 30 seconds that are really good.
¶ Don't forget to put captions on your clips
>> Elissa: You know, revert back to vine days. >> Nicholas: Just bring us back. Yes, bring us back to vine days. Oh my gosh. Nothing that. Nothing else this week will make me feel more like a dinosaur than the little tear in my eye I got from the mention of Vine. Um. >> Elissa: Oh, I love Vine. I miss vine so much. >> Nicholas: Thanks for that. Anyway, um, most important of all, and unlike vine videos, don't forget to put
captions on your clips. That's like arguably one of the most important things you can do. Actually. >> Elissa: It really is. >> Nicholas: Um, yeah. >> Elissa: Yeah. So captions, I mean, and not necessarily on TikTok, but on other social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, 85% of videos are watched on mute. So you can only imagine like if we're. Our mouths are just moving, there's no sound coming out. That's a little weird, right?
>> Nicholas: I don't know, maybe you're chewing food. I'm not here to judge, but it. >> Elissa: Could be, I don't know. >> Nicholas: I guess that's why you need captions that we know if you're chewing food or if you're saying something. >> Elissa: Exactly. But the captions are going to not only make sure that people that are watching on, um, mute for whatever reason are able to actually understand what's going on.
It's actually just also going to make your content a little bit more engaging. Um, kind of going back to what we said in the beginning. The more kind of visual elements there are, the more like jumpy it is. So if you have especially like those karaoke captions where text is changing color or it's changing styles or something that's you're scrolling and you're like, whoa, there's a couple things going on. Your eyes automatically going to go to
that. So you're likely to kind of have one to two seconds more of attention before people make that decision to scroll. Hopefully you made a great clip. Whether you manually did it, you let a clipping tool headliner selected for you, then, uh, I'm sorry, I think I'm hilarious. Um, then again, having just those visual elements is going to kind of hook people in a little bit more naturally for sure. >> Nicholas: And look, it's. It's not just like an engagement editing thing,
right? We don't have to like. I know a lot of people probably hear, oh, yeah, put colored captions in and they think like Mr. Beast immediately. No, we, uh, are not Mr. Beast. And we're not saying to edit your videos like Mr. Beast necessarily. But on the more informational podcast side, there's a lot of value to doing just captions for them
anyway. And you can just straight up have like normal captions and then the keyword of each sentence can be colored if you want, or little color coding, things like that, which is great. I always compare that to giving your viewer like spark notes for what they're doing. Because it's kind of like, oh, I can passively watch this and I can put the story together based off of, okay, this word is highlighted, this word is highlighted, this plus
this. And not to mention, even if you just do straight up captions, if somebody's listening to something while they read it, there is a demonstrated increase in comprehension. Right. Because you're processing it auditorily and visually at that point. So it's really good for the brain. And if you have a data driven podcast, you obviously want to do things that are good for the brain, I hope. >> Elissa: Seems like a solid alignment there.
>> Nicholas: It seems like it would. You know, the math checks out on that. I don't know. But anyway, um, other best practices. This kind of maybe goes a little bit past posting to social specifically, but just for editing your podcast, video or audio,
just, you know, keep it clean and keep it simple. If you have a lot of pauses in your recording because you're like me and you have to collect Your thoughts often, because there are just so many of them, um, take the pauses out, and that's fine. And we actually have a tool called Eddy that's, like, amazing at doing that. We can actually remove, like, a lot of the ums. And the stammering that usually occurs when somebody is trying to figure out what they're trying to say next.
>> Elissa: Exactly. And then especially if you're thinking about how maybe you're like, okay, this podcast has convinced you, like, I'm going to create social clips. Darn it. Where do you start? How do you do it? You can 100% during your editing process, however you're doing that, start to pull those clips out. So I've heard some people, they'll clap. Like, if they're saying, like, okay, especially if it's a little bit more scripted, they might know ahead of time, okay,
this is really good. So they'll kind of put a clap marker. They'll just mark it in their script so they know what time to go back and try and clip from. >> Nicholas: So, sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but as a person with a podcast that does it. There are two things that you can do that probably come in handy. First, if you record to an external recorder, there's a good chance you have a marker button on that recorder, and you can just, like, mark the file while you're recording it.
If you're not, though, yes, you can clap. That's awesome. I actually really like that idea. I also just like clapping. It's fun, makes a memorable sound. I'm just different like that. >> Elissa: But cheap sound effects. >> Nicholas: Cheap sound effects, yeah. Uh, no. I studied film in college, and I had a slapper board for syncing sound. We just clapped. Like, to this day, we just clap. Um, but no, the other thing you can do is you have a cell phone or an Apple
watch. You could start the stopwatch when you start a recording and mark laps every time you have a clip that comes up. And you just do the math and you can actually get the number, which is what I do. Um, when I'm recording a podcast, I'll, like, subtly have my watch in my hand, and I'll just, like, hit it whenever I get a good clip going. >> Elissa: I think you're so smart. I would have never, never in a million years.
>> Nicholas: Yeah, I have my moments, and people just think I'm fidgeting because I do that. >> Elissa: Well, there you go. Um, uh, and then other tips, too, if you're thinking,
¶ The major takeaway from this podcast is video can be a powerful tool to help enhance and grow your podcast
like, I don't know that that's for me. Some people, they also just separate from their podcast, they'll do recordings, um, or even just during the very, very beginning of the podcast, Very, very end of the podcast, they'll do some, um, I think call her Daddy. They're really good about doing it. They do the rapid fire questions at the recording start and interesting. I think it might now be baked into the actual podcast. I don't think it initially started out as that. It was just more for
social. But regardless, some people, they have their own, like, segments separate to the show where they'll record these clips like intentionally. Sometimes, especially if your guest is very new to podcasting, it's kind of a great way to ice break and get them warmed up. But you're also getting the social clips. Um, that's something that some people do. So a lot of different ways that you can do it. Um, and we're never, ever, ever going to say change your process, anything like that. Definitely.
There's myriad of different things that you can do within your current flow to kind of just start with those social clips. You don't have to change anything, don't have to reinvent the wheel. There's of course, I'll plug it one last time. All sorts of clipping tools out there. >> Nicholas: Headliner, Name one, name one, name the best one. >> Elissa: Headliner. They can automatically, um, kind of
pull those clips for you. You can get like batch clips, up to 10 different ones, caption them, do all the things with it. Um, again, you don't have to use Headliner, but there are, you know, there are advantages to using. >> Nicholas: I think you, I think you mispronounced. You do have to use Headliner, because it's just that good. >> Elissa: It, you know, can't beat free, man. Can't beat free. >> Nicholas: Wow. And there it is. There is the subtlest plug for the fact
that we're free. All right, so we'll be getting an award for that in the mail within like two to three weeks, probably. But anyway, no, I mean, I think this is all very helpful. Uh, the major takeaway from this is, look, video is important. It's sticking around. Who would have thought that the Buggles were right? Video did kill the radio star. And yeah, uh, maybe get into video if you want to, but only if you want to, you know, and don't go crazy trying
to like, become a video podcaster. There are a lot of places that are accepting it. One thing we kind of forgot to mention is it's not just YouTube. You can upload your video podcasts onto Spotify now. >> Elissa: Yeah, yeah. How could we forget? >> Nicholas: Yeah, like actually literally, um, you know, and even then, you can upload chunks of your podcast, like we said to TikTok or Instagram as, like, clips and stuff,
¶ Thanks for listening!!!
which is how a lot of people deal with media now. That's last week or the last episode of this. We literally said, like, younger people use TikTok more than they watch television. So it's totally valid to do a video podcast, not upload the full video somewhere and just do the video clips on social. That is 100% valid. Anyway, unless Elissa has anything else we should bring up. I think that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening or watching because we, too are videomeisters
now. And, um, yeah, we hope to hear from you or hope for you to hear from us in a future episode. That's confusing. Yeah, my head hurts a little. Anyway, thanks for listening and bye.