Should You Be Live Streaming Your Podcast? (Video Podcast)

thoughts about it. I've tried things I have seen other people try things, and I just have so much really important decisions that I want you to make before you decide whether it's good or bad, because honestly, I think that it could be really awesome for some people. And I think that it can be really overwhelming for others. So we're going to share lots of pros and cons, how to set it up, if that's the route that you want to go like this

is going to be a fabulous episode. If you've been thinking about live streaming your podcast, so let's get right to it. Welcome to the profit podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the

time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?

down when I tried to do them. But you know what I'm talking about, okay, you know, this expression, because, Holy moly, y'all, I get asked this at least once a week, at least once a week, whereas six months ago, it was probably once in a blue moon. Okay, we're just gonna keep going with the analogies and metaphors here. But I get asked

this question all the time. And it's not just once a week, actually, let me take that back, I would say, once in my group a week, but then I see it in other people's communities every single day where people are like, should I be live streaming? Is this something I should be doing? Like, am I missing out? Like, it's kind of that feeling that new business owners get when they first start their online business? Or they first start showing up online? They're like, should I be in all the

places, right? Should I be on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and Tiktok, and Snapchat, and I don't even know all the other ones that I'm not cool enough to be on. But people feel like they're missing out. And so I really wanted to kind of just take the opportunity to talk about live streaming, because, again, I've just been seeing this question gaining popularity. And I went back and I was looking through like the backlog of our episodes. And I was like, why haven't we talked

about this? So fun fact, we actually have talked about this several times on the potty report, because this question has come up so much in the potty people community. But I haven't really had a chance to talk about it here. So if you haven't listened to the episode that I did about the potty report, I really talked about whenever we were celebrating, yay, we just turned a year old. I talked about how I use that podcast to really play

around with content ideas. And it's true like I have if you go listen to that podcast, there's several episodes where I talk about ideas with live streaming your podcast, and should you do a video podcast, but I just wanted to reiterate that it's really fun to have a place where you can test ideas with your audience first before you know, okay, I really need to bring that over to this podcast. So we talked about it. So I just wanted

to kind of throw that out there. If you haven't listened to the potty report, you need to listen to it. It's my daily show. It comes out Monday through Friday, every single week, and it's five minutes or less. So you can listen to it while you're getting ready. Brushing your teeth in the morning or you know, whatever it is that you do in the mornings when you're getting ready. Like I it's so fun to hear that people listen to the show whenever they're drinking their morning coffee. So

that's, that's really cool. I want you to go check it out. But let's go back to live streaming your podcast.

give her a shout out here. So many Melanie Diane how she is the live stream expert like she has just gone off the deep end on doing crazy amounts of research with testing products trying to see what setup works best for different types of people and different types of streamers in like she just like way above and beyond if you've ever enjoyed, like if you've seen caught one of my Facebook Lives or my YouTube lives, and you're

like, Oh, where's this countdown timer? Krystal has this fancy setup, how she get her podcast logo up there? How'd she get this that like, that is all me, like messaging Melanie and saying, Hey, girl, I kind of want to do like, how do you do this. And she's the one in my ear telling me like behind the scenes, how to do everything. So I want you to go follow her. I want you to go check her out. I want you to go to her website, go to her Instagram, but make sure you are following her on

YouTube. This is really important because she does a weekly show. It's every Tuesday at 2pm. Eastern that's 1pm Central. Hang on, I can do this and 11pm Pacific or no 11am. I'm trying I'm trying to get the different timezone. So it's 2pm, Eastern, 1pm, Central, 11am. Pacific, but she does a weekly show where she talks like that's all she talks about is live streaming and how to make the most out of your live streams. So make sure you go

check that out. She also has a fantastic Facebook group that I'm gonna link to in the show notes. And we got to get her on the show. Again, she's been on the podcast before but not since she's gone. All in with live streaming. So I'm gonna make sure and get her on the show to answer some of the questions. This is actually a good like segue like, why don't we talk about things today. And then if you have follow up questions, send

them to me. And we'll make sure that we get those answered whenever I have Melanie back on the show. But let's talk about the pros and cons first. So do I like live streaming, I love live streaming. I love live streaming on my Facebook group, I do it on my page and do it on my YouTube channel, depending on what the content is what the topic is, but I'm up to about anywhere from three to four live streams a week. I think without a shadow of a doubt I do at least two I do one for my potty

people community that is every single week. And then I do my main one on Tuesdays. And sometimes it's in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. I need to get like a really like solid schedule on when it's going to be. But um, yeah, like I really enjoy live streaming. And I'm gonna go ahead and give you the pros first, like good news. And then bad news. Right. So let's start on like the happy go lucky, cheery side of things because I really

really do love live streaming. So the reason why I'm pro number one is it's very easy to repurpose your content. Oh my gosh, if you have video, people love video, people eat up video, they love that they can watch you live, they can interact with you. And then you can download a video and repurpose it for Instagram for Facebook, you can put it on YouTube, like it's very easy to repurpose video content, you could transcribe it and use, you know, take quotes from it and put it

out different places. Or you could do kind of what I was saying earlier with like the potty report where I test ideas. Sometimes I've seen people that will go live on Facebook and kind of test out an idea and then go and create a podcast episode saying, Oh, I did a live stream the other day. And Sarah from our community had a question about this. And you know, this is how I answered her. But I didn't have a chance to go deeper. Let me really answer how I would answer if I had 20

minutes to dedicate to this one question. So there's a lot of different ways that you could repurpose live stream content. The second thing is it's really easy to do now. Oh my gosh, it is so much easier to live stream than it was six months a year ago. I have been using stream yard if you want to check this out and see what it is. I'm actually an affiliate for stream yard so you can go to Krystal Proffitt comm forward slash stream yard and check them out. I think that you get a

discount. It's like 10 or $15 off your first month. But you can try it for free. You don't even have to have a paid version. I know several people in the online community space that do the free version. They don't even need the upgraded version. But what it is, is this is a platform and I'm really gonna go into detail in a second about

how to use it. But it's a platform that allows you to make live streaming easy and I do not put that lightly because I used to do live streams where I had to connect this other very complicated software. And I had to connect it to Facebook and make sure that we had these API keys that we're working together and talking together. And if one thing was off, it was really hard to go live. And then there was a lot of things that you had to manage on the back end to make sure that the

connection didn't break. And like, you know, you didn't hit the wrong button, and then everything shut down. And you're like, Am I alive? I can't tell like, I'm just hoping I'm talking. I don't I don't really know if I'm live yet. Stream yard makes it so much easier to do really cool things on a very free budget, right? You could do this totally for free, or at a very low cost to you when you're just getting started. And oh my gosh, like I said, Go follow Melanie, because she does

stuff with stream yard. That totally blows me away. She actually works with them as like a strategic partner. So she knows like the DL on like, Oh, they have this new feature coming out. And you can upload videos and show them while you're live and like all kinds of way more advanced things than what I do. But oh, my it's just stream yard really does. Like we drink the Kool Aid. We love it. She's actually the one that told me about stream yard last year, and I started

using it and I absolutely love it. So those are my two pros. It's easy to repurpose, and it's so much easier to do now.

want to look at the camera. Do I have to look at the camera? Do I need to interact with my audience? Do I need to answer questions? If people were on Facebook? Like while they're live? Or do I need to ignore them and only pay attention to the podcast audience? Or is my podcast audience gonna think that I'm ignoring them, because I'm only talking to the Facebook people, like, there's a few things that you have to work out on your own.

But it really like it takes some more planning. If you're going to livestream your show like it does have a few questions that you need to ask and answer before you get there. So it's not as easy as a regular podcast where you are like, by yourself in your office, if you're doing a solo show, and you're just recording, no one else has to be around, no one else has to know. And that's the second con is you don't have to be camera ready, y'all, if you're doing a podcast, you don't

have to be camera ready. But if you're live streaming, there's a lot of people who are like, Oh, I gotta at least do my makeup, I got to do my hair, I want to make sure I don't look like I just rolled out of bed. Because once your contents out there, like unless you take it down, it's going to live out there. Whether it's in your Facebook group, it's on your YouTube channel, whatever that looks like for you. But you have to be camera ready in the sense of whatever that looks like for

you. But now I want to talk about some of the actual logistics that go into live streaming. Alright, so we have a few simple pros, a few simple cons. But whenever it comes to logistics, you have to ask yourself, Am I going to do this for just my solo podcast where I just kind of turn on my camera, and I'm just talking into my mic. And, you know, it's like, like a behind the scenes shot where people are just seeing you, kind of

while you're doing your thing, right? It's almost like that fishbowl effect where like, You're, you're in your own little bubble, but you have the camera on, and people can see what you're doing, or are you going to have the approach of I'm actually going to interact with my audience and answer their questions and like call them out and say, Hey, Sarah had a great question. She's in our Facebook group. Here's her question. And this is how I would answer it. Or are you only going to do

live streams whenever you have an interview? So this is another cool thing that I've seen people do. It's like they have a special guest. And because like they have a paid group, or they have a private group with members in it, they're like, Oh, well, because these people pay me or they're part of this special community, they get access to the video content. I think that this is actually

really cool. And it's a great way to kind of have perks to your membership or a Facebook group or another community that you have online where you're like, oh, if you want to enjoy like the live aspect of these interviews, or be able to ask the guests questions, you know, after the interview is over, then you have to be a part of our community. So it kind of creates a little bit of that FOMO where people are like, Oh man, I I

wish that I was part of their community. So I could ask these incredible guests questions whenever they have them on. So these are just a few things to ask yourself, logistic wise, how you want your live streams to actually work.

call in the last 12 months. And seriously, if you can do that, you can handle creating a live stream 24 months ago, that was not the case. But not everyone use zoom. Not everyone was doing remote meetings. Not everyone was talking to their colleagues and their clients and their families and everybody in a virtual space. But now like that's like second nature, like we got this we can absolutely do like live video, because we've had practice we've been able to do it. So it is super

simple to set up. But I am going to link to the show notes and I haven't talked about the show notes yet. So krystalproffitt.com/episode243 is where you're gonna see everything we talked about today, I'm going to link to Melanie stuff. I'm also going to link to some YouTube videos that I've done as well as to Melanie's channel that you can really go like deep dive, follow all the things that she talks about over there. But it's really four simple steps to take a live stream and

turn it into a podcast. Okay, so that is the idea here is you can live stream your content immediately to the audience that's watching, but then you can download it and use it as a podcast episode. So in order to make this work first, I highly recommend using a platform like stream yard, I'm just gonna plug them again.

KrystalProffitt.com/streamyard and try them out, I'm telling you, like, you're like, she can't, you know, Krystals probably has a little bit more tech savviness than me like maybe she's got all this complicated stuff, she's got it figured it out. I'm telling you, stream yard is very simple to

use. Very, very simple. If I can figure this out, I know that you can do and y'all I didn't have all the resources, all the YouTube videos that have been published in the last 12 months, that really help you set stream yard up properly, I kind of was just like patchworking it together, I figured it out. So if I can do this, you can do so one, you're going to set up a stream yard account. And what sub point to that is you're going to connect your Facebook, YouTube, like all the accounts

where you want to live stream. And what's cool about stream yard, I know the plan that I'm on is one of the higher tiers. But I have my Facebook

page, my facebook group, my YouTube channel. And I also have two or three other groups that I am an admin of and I participate in, where I can go live, your I can simultaneously go live in three separate places like this is what I do on a regular basis, my normal live stream that I do on Tuesdays, I'm going live on my Facebook page in my facebook group and on my YouTube channel. simultaneously. There's no more like, Oh, I gotta go live here. And then I get into life here. And

then I got to upload a video there. No, you can do it all at the same time using stream yard. So when you sign up, you connect all of your accounts, and then you're good to go. Right? Like it's just a click of a button. Next time you want to go live, you just decide, oh, I only want to go live in my facebook group or I only want to go live on YouTube. You can change that up every single time.

Okay, so that's the first step. The second step is, I want you to prepare with notes if you have a solo show, and I want you to prep your guest if you're doing an interview. Now, this is really the same as when you're going to record your solo show, right? Maybe you have some notes, maybe you have a Google Doc, whatever that looks like for how you prep for your podcast on a regular basis.

The only difference is you're going to have a camera in front of you whether it's a webcam, whether you're you could do it from your phone, like however you're deciding to go live. You want to have a camera presence. That looks good. And what I like that's so subjective, right like what is good that does not mean a 4k camera that costs 1000 $1,000 that you need to go by tomorrow, before you start live streaming, I can't even tell you how many times I have live streamed with just

my phone. And it works perfect. It works fantastic. It looks great. But I would recommend at least having some sort of setup. And this is more related to lighting than anything else. Anything else like you don't want to look like it's a random video, whenever you're live

streaming your podcast. And I've seen people that are like, Well, I have to do it in my closet, well, that's fine, put up a picture, put up a frame, like, do something in your closet, like pick up all the dirty laundry, just do something to where you're like, Okay, I feel good about you know, live streaming. And here, it's going to sound great, it's going to look great, and it's going to be worth my time. So if you're doing it

solo, you want to make sure you're doing that. But also if you have guests because people are going to see both of you. And with stream yard, I think on my plan. I don't know how it is on the free one if it's up to four people. But on my plan, I could have up to 10 people, y'all 10 people on a live stream sounds crazy chaotic. No, thank you. I don't want to have that many people on my live stream when I'm doing a podcast maybe one day in

the future, but not right now. But I think that it's really cool that whenever you're prepping your guests, you let them know, Hey, this is going to going to be live. So not only are we going to be chatting, but we can have the opportunity to interact with our audience, so you want to prep them. And I have a pro tip for you. I did this whenever I first started using stream yard, I took a few screenshots of what it would look like for a guest to come into the studio. So it's almost like

a greenroom. Right. If you've ever been to an event, you know where it's like, oh, the speakers backstage. That's exactly what stream yard has. And it's a super cool feature where you can say, okay, you know, here you put your name in here, here's where you set up your audio and your mic much like zoom. Again, if you've done zoom, you can use stream yard, where you set it all up, you're good to go, your camera looks awesome, your

audio sounds great. And then your if you do like a quick tutorial, prepping your guests on how to do this, they'll feel more confident. And they'll feel better that like, Okay, I'm not going to totally screw this up, right, whether it's a quick video tutorial you do, or maybe some screenshots or find an awesome YouTube video that you can send to them beforehand. You know, hopefully Melanie has one if she doesn't, I'm gonna make sure that

she does from now on. But you know, something that's like, Hey, this is what you're going to see whenever you're a guest for a stream yard stream. Okay, and then again, I'm gonna link to all of Melanie's stuff. So I'm going to go and dig through her content and see if she has a really good example that you could send to guests. But I want you to prep with your own notes, whether it's solo or an interview, and then prep with your

guest. And then the third step in going live for a live stream is you're going to go live and record Simple as that. And this is where you make those decisions. Are we going to interact with the audience? Are we just going to record this like it's a podcast episode, like, make these decisions before you go live with your guest, because I think it's really important or make these decisions if you're going live solo, whether you're going to interact with your guests while

you're talking. Or if you're going to just teach or present your content, and then do a q&a session at the end. So whatever format you choose, there's no right or wrong answer here. But you do need to make those decisions before you get into it. So your audience knows what's going on. And they're not like Wait, what what did I just stumble into like, what's, what's happening here, right? You

want people to know, kind of what's going on. And then the fourth step, and this is the last step in getting set up with a live stream podcast is you want to download the audio or video whenever you're finished. This is where it's going to look a little bit different for everybody, because maybe you're live streaming and a Facebook group, but you don't want to share it on YouTube until later. Totally fine. What you can do is download the video whenever you're finished, like Jean, you

know, you'll hit stop, you'll hit in stream. And then you can go and repurpose that video later. Or you can use it on Instagram. You could use it wherever you want to use it. But you want to make sure that you download the audio or the video. And this is what I love about stream yard. It's so cool because used to you had to download the video. And then you had to extract the audio and do a whole bunch of complicated things that you no

longer have to do. So I'm excited for y'all that this was something that happened from the very beginning, but I'm glad that they rolled out this feature because now if you don't if you're like I don't need the video, it's already like I streamed it to YouTube. It's there. I can link to it. If people want to go watch it. I don't want to edit it or do anything else. What you can do is simply

download the audio. You don't have to have the video, you can click Download audio, it'll download an mp3 or a WAV file, and you can use that as your podcast. So I hope that you found all of this helpful, I really, really want you all to consider live streaming, because I think that there are more pros than cons in like, looking at how you can repurpose it and use it in so many different ways. But I know y'all at the same time,

I know that it feels a little overwhelming. And I think that like subconsciously, that's one of the reasons why I haven't really pushed this and talked about this on the show, because most of you are just trying to figure out your podcast. And I don't want you to think guys is something I need to be doing right now. And I've had several new podcasters say, Well, I want to do a video podcast, I want to do this. And I want to do that.

And I'm like, that sounds really overwhelming for someone who is just starting someone who is just trying to figure out how to get their podcast going and off the ground. It sounds like a lot. And the reason why I say that is because I know what a lot of feels like, I felt like it was a lot. Whenever I first started, I had to learn editing, I had to learn how my hosting provider worked, I had to learn like just a lot of things I

had never learned before. So if you are listening to this, and you are brand new to podcasting, like you haven't even launched your show, you are just getting started and you don't feel confident with technology. I don't want you to live stream until you've been doing your podcast for at least three months. Okay, and I know that sounds like a lot, but three months actually goes by really fast. Here we are, we're already in the second quarter of 2021, like three months goes by very quickly.

So I'm not saying I don't want you to live stream at all. But I don't want you to live stream in a way that it stresses you out. And you're like, Oh my gosh, I I wanted my podcast to be this way. But now I threw in live stream. And now I'm kind of like just stressing out about it. And it's not the way that I thought it was going to be. And I'd hoped it was going to be this way. And then like all that, like you're spiraling, you're spiraling because you're overwhelmed with all the things

that you actually don't even have to be doing. So if you feel confident, if you're like, man, I got technology. I've already used stream yard before I know how to do this, like, this is my jam. I just need to know how to repurpose it for podcasts, then maybe you're ready for it. Maybe you are. But if you don't confidently feel awesome about your podcast and your message right now, I don't want you to live stream. I don't want you to throw that in as something else that's added on top of your

plate. I'm not saying do not live stream period. I'm saying not to live stream in a way that you stress out. And you're like, Oh my gosh, this this is just not gonna work for me.

And maybe you'll get some inspiration. I have some live podcast episodes that I've recorded for the potty report, I don't tend to do a lot of the profit podcast live streams. But um, you know, who knows, maybe this episode will inspire me to do more. But I think that video is not going anywhere y'all like that's just a straight up video is not going anywhere, it is simply gaining more

popularity. So I think that the faster you can become more confident behind the camera, then you will have a higher chance of succeeding a lot faster. That's not to say that you have to have video in order to be successful, but it is something that people are looking for whenever they're finding a content creator that they love. They're like man I want to do they have someone on YouTube Do they have a Facebook group or they post videos of you know, like, it's just something

that's not going anywhere. So I want you to feel confident about it. I want you to feel good about it. And I hope that it's something that you're going to explore again. That's all I have for you today. Check out the show notes. krystalproffitt.com/episode243. Go check out Melanie and all of her incredible resources. And if this is your first time tuning in, make sure you hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast and I would love to hear

what you think about this show. We're doing a review contest in the month of April. So if you're listening to this way far in the future, the contest may be over but in the month of April 21. We are doing a review contest. It is coming up it hasn't started yet, don't worry, but it is coming up very soon. So keep your eyes and ears like stay away. Be on the lookout friends because it is coming and it's going to be so much fun. But that's all I have for you today. So remember, keep

it up. We all have to start somewhere.