Episode Transcript
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Justin (00:01):
People underestimate the
momentum that YouTube has. Kids
wake up in the morning andthey've got five minutes to
kill, they go to YouTube. Whenpeople come home from a long day
at work, I'll just like go toYouTube.
Jeremy (00:13):
People who spend at
least 75% or more of their
podcast consumption in audioonly format, 48% of people found
their favorite show in YouTube,and the distant second place was
at 14%.
Justin (00:24):
It just occupies a space
in the consumer's life that no
other app does.
Jeremy (00:32):
It's beyond choice. It's
beyond even habit. It is just
pure addiction. People have beenprogrammed and conditioned to
pull up their phone, pull up thesmart TV, pull up their iPad,
and, like, reach for that redYouTube button. Do podcasters
need to be on video now?
Okay. So there's this kind of,like, weird phenomenon happening
(00:54):
in podcasting right now wherethere is, on the one side, this
existential dread of video isgoing to obliterate podcasting
as a medium as we know it. Andthis is from the kind of
traditional ad driven revenueside of things in the podcasting
world, the established podcastindustry. And then on the other
side, we've got this unbridledenthusiasm about the potential
(01:14):
for discovery that video isintroducing. And it strikes me
that you are actually theperfect person right in the
middle of both of these worldswhere you both are the cofounder
of a podcast hosting platform,very much tied to traditional
RSS based podcasting.
But then you're also a creator.I know, you know, we launched
this show as a video first showlast year. You launched another
show, The Panel, as maybe notvideo first, but heavily reliant
(01:35):
on video. And you also do a lotof stuff on YouTube. So I'm
curious, like, how do you thinkabout where podcasting is at?
Is it apocalypse or is itunbelievable opportunity?
Justin (01:44):
Oh, it's not apocalypse.
I think it is opportunity for
some people, some creators, someshows. Audio podcasting, I think
is going to be fine. There is atime and place for audio only
listening. Audio only listeninghas attributes and benefits that
video podcasting doesn't, bothon the consumption side and on
(02:08):
the creator side.
There's a bigger investment forvideo that a lot of people don't
talk about. I don't think thisis apocalyptic. I think it's
exciting in some ways. Becausefor some people, being able to
do video is going to be hugelybeneficial for their business,
or for their brand, or forwhatever they're trying to
achieve. And for other folks,they're gonna be able to do both
(02:29):
at the same time.
There's gonna be a lot of peoplestarting video only shows, and
then moving into audio onlypodcasting. Mhmm. So I think
this is a very exciting time.Last time we talked about
there's some concern about theplatforms themselves, like Yeah.
YouTube and Spotify.
I think that's a differentconversation. But in terms of
(02:49):
like this moment as a creator, Ithink it's pretty exciting.
Jeremy (02:52):
Yeah. So you mentioned
that you don't think audio
podcasting is going anywhere.And so I think that that maybe
answers the question that Ithink one of the most common
things I hear from creators is,do I need to be on video now?
And it's very much a likeexpectation almost. And my
thoughts are that you do notneed to be on video.
It doesn't sound like that'syour thought either.
Justin (03:10):
No. No. But I think it's
a good time to assess again, the
kind of content you'reproducing, who you're producing
it for, and the outcome you wantto achieve. So if you're doing
programming tutorials
Jeremy (03:23):
Mhmm.
Justin (03:24):
And you're showing code
on screen, like do video. Yeah.
For sure. But if you're doingtrue crime fiction, audio only
might be the best format foryou. Yeah.
And so you've got to decide, youknow, what kind of content am I
producing? What kind of audienceam I trying to attract? And what
(03:45):
kind of outcomes am I lookingfor?
Jeremy (03:47):
Yeah. I think my take on
it is that let's just say
there's like this pool of peoplewho are listening to to audio
only podcasts. That pool isgoing to say roughly the same
size, but people who are willingto adopt video and interested in
adopting video as podcastcreators can tap into these
bigger pool of people who maynot listen to audio only
podcasts. And so there's gonnabe the same amount of attention
probably to go around in audioonly podcasting going forward.
(04:10):
And actually, that probably willstill continue to grow, but I
think the pool for videoconsumption is actually growing
much quicker and is already justmany, many times bigger as we'll
see as we, look at the data.
So let's, start off with the thedata as always, and this is
something that I've tracked inthe past couple of podcast
marketing trends reports. Andactually, are currently running
(04:30):
the survey as we're recordingthis for the 2025 report. I've
introduced a number ofadditional video and YouTube
focused questions, so that'll beinteresting to see how those
play out. But from 2023 to 2024,we had an 84 increase in the
average subscriber count for,participants who submitted the
survey. So that seems to suggestthat people are taking YouTube
(04:52):
more seriously and actuallygaining some traction there,
which that's interesting on boththe consumption side as well as
probably creators putting moreeffort into it.
I pulled from a few othersources, and one of the really
interesting pieces was aroundvideo as a discovery platform,
which is the whole promise ofYouTube for a lot of people and
video in general. And this comesfrom Sounds Profitable and, Tom
(05:14):
Webster wrote a couple of greatblog posts on this, which we'll
link in the show notes.Basically, what I thought was
fascinating is he broke down inthis one kind of blog post. He
calls them video primes. Sothese are people who identify as
podcast listeners, but 75% oftheir podcast consumption is in
video and audio primes who 75%of their podcast consumption
comes in audio.
(05:35):
And both of them, when askedabout where they discovered
their favorite podcast, theoverwhelming favorite was
YouTube. And so for videoprimes, that was 66% of people
discovered their favorite showthrough YouTube. But for audio
primes, people who spend atleast 75% or more of their
podcast consumption in audioonly format, 48% of people found
(05:56):
their favorite show in YouTube,and the distant second place was
a tie between Facebook andSpotify at 14% video.
Justin (06:03):
Mhmm. It makes sense. I
think because the mode of
consumption is different. Sothis happened to me the other
day. I was watching YouTube andthe algorithm serves up
recommended videos.
It's very different than feedbased podcast listening. When I
open up my podcast player, I'mjust looking at a feed of
(06:26):
episodes that I'm subscribed tothose shows. Right? So I'm only
seeing what I'm subscribed to.But on YouTube, I'm getting
recommended videos.
And I got a recommended EzraKlein video. And I'm like, oh, I
forgot about him. Like, I usedto be subscribed to his show,
and then I switched fromovercast to pocketcast. And I
should check that show outagain. So it makes complete
(06:48):
sense to me that people arediscovering audio shows on
YouTube.
What's still not clear in thisdata Are they getting served
regular full length YouTubevideos? Are these YouTube
Shorts? Are these just shortvideos? We have no idea what
kind of content is leadingpeople to subscribe to audio
(07:08):
podcasts. But anecdotally, atleast in my life, I can see this
happening.
Jeremy (07:13):
Yeah. And Tom actually
shares an anecdote similar to
yours where his it actually wasa YouTube short that introduced
him to a new podcast that hethen started listening to.
Immediately after watching theshort, he's like, this seems
like an interesting show,searched it in his podcast app,
and started listening. I thinkit's fair to say that probably
people discover podcasts in allthe possible ways on YouTube.
Mhmm.
But what is the most effective?We don't really know that. And
(07:36):
that's something that I'll becurious to either add into
future podcast marketing trendsreports, as we get more people
actually experimenting withYouTube. Right now, it's still
not a huge percentage of people,but I imagine over the next
couple of years, we're gonnastart seeing a lot more of that.
Mhmm.
So discoverability, it makes alot of sense that that's what
YouTube is built around, theiralgorithm. We did a whole
episode already this season onalgorithms and algorithmic
(07:58):
discovery, both primarilythrough YouTube and Spotify. But
there's this other aspect ofvideo that I think is really
interesting, which is justconsumer behavior. And so I was
pulling some data here from anumber of sources online. And if
we look at how much time theaverage American adult spends
consuming video content a day,it is six hours and forty eight
(08:20):
minutes.
Wow. Almost seven hours. This iscrazy to me. And you're
thinking, part of this isdigital video. And so that
accounts for four hours.
In 2025, '4 hours a day, theaverage American adult spends
consuming digital video contentand two hours and forty eight
minutes on traditional TV. Soeven four hours of digital video
content is a huge amount thatbasically people are looking for
(08:42):
this type of engagement withcontent and they're seeking that
out where I just don't thinkthat that exists for audio only
content. And, I mean, it's toughto say because you think
podcasts and music and radio,that all could add up to a
significant amount, but I don'tthink it's seven hours a day for
Justin (08:57):
each person. And by the
way, I'm gonna flip what you
just said. You said people arelooking for this kind of
content, so they're going there.I think it's actually the other
way around. I think this kind ofcontent pulls people in.
I think it's addictive. I thinka lot of this includes people
scrolling TikTok for two hourson the toilet. You know? That
Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's easy to get suckedinto video. We talked about this
(09:19):
in the in the other episode.It's just as a medium, it has
this power over people. Yeah.And the platforms also do have a
role to play in this medium.
And why we're seeing these bignumbers is because the platforms
are really good at keeping yourattention on platform. Instagram
Reels wants you to stay and lookat how Facebook's using
(09:43):
Instagram Reels. It's allthrough every app. It's like
they know what they're doing.There's a reason that that's
become the most importantfeature to Facebook.
It's Reels and Shorts andStories. Sorry. But this is a
lot of time spent
Jeremy (10:00):
Yeah.
Justin (10:00):
Watching. And we see
this with very young people. But
we also see it know, all thebaby boomers I know, a lot of
them are just retired andsitting at home all day, and
they are watching TV with theiriPads open. They're consuming
both at the same time. So I'mnot totally surprised by this.
Jeremy (10:21):
Yeah. So I went a little
bit further and looked
specifically at some of theYouTube numbers, which is is
really interesting as well. Andso let's actually start off with
podcasting. About 47% ofAmericans aged 12 and older
listen to podcasts on a monthlybasis. And so that's around a
34,000,000 people.
When it comes to YouTube, it'sactually 238,000,000 people who
view YouTube on a monthly basis.And so that's not quite double
(10:44):
the amount of people who engagewith podcasts, but then we get
into some kind of crazy numbersabout, like, daily, weekly, and
monthly active users on YouTube.Basically, of all the Internet
users in The US, this is notYouTube users. This is Internet
users. People who use theInternet in The US, Sixty Two
Percent of Internet users useYouTube on a daily basis.
(11:05):
92% use YouTube on a weeklybasis, and 98% of all US
Internet users use YouTube on amonthly basis.
Justin (11:14):
Yeah. I mean, just think
Internet users, that's everybody
with a cell phone with a dataplan. That's everybody with home
Internet. That's everybody thatcan access the Internet at a
Starbucks. This is a huge groupof people.
And it's basically saying 98% ofthose people who have access to
the Internet somewhere, publiclibrary, wherever it is, are
(11:35):
using YouTube monthly. I thinkpeople underestimate the
momentum that YouTube has. Whenkids wake up in the morning and
they've got five minutes tokill, they go to YouTube. When
people come home from a long dayat work and they're like, oh,
should I get into that Netflixshow? It's like, nah.
(11:56):
I'll just like go to YouTube. Itfeels like a lower lift. You
know, Spotify wants to get intovideo. What would Spotify have
to do to actually changeconsumer behavior? Well, they
would need a Spotify video appicon on the Apple TV.
And people open up Apple TV. Andit's like that icon sits next to
(12:18):
Amazon Amazon Prime. It sitsnext to Disney Plus. It sits
next to Netflix and YouTube. Andthen and you got to think, well,
they can offer compellingprogramming that convinces
someone to say, well, instead ofgoing to YouTube, I'm going go
to Spotify and get that showthat I'm really into.
Or they have to compete withthat mode of consumption, which
(12:42):
is very laid back. Let me seewhat my options are. Very low
commitment that YouTubeoccupies. YouTube just has every
piece of the pie. It's like,where do I go for that long form
content that I love?
Where do I go when I'm bored?YouTube. Where do I go when it's
(13:03):
like, do I have the energy todedicate to a whole TV show
right now or a whole movie? No.Do I want to just scroll TikTok?
No. But I'll open up video andthere's gonna be 20 videos
recommended for me that are fiveminutes long. It's like, oh,
yeah, I'm gonna watch that. Itjust occupies a space in the
(13:23):
consumer's life that no otherapp does. And it's a different
mental mode than being onTikTok, than being on Instagram,
than listening to a pod audiopodcast.
When we talk about videopodcasting, what we are ignoring
is how much the consumer'smindset and the different modes
(13:49):
that the consumer findsthemselves in matters. And like
even Spotify is trying tocompete on this.
Charles Duhigg (13:57):
Yeah.
Justin (13:57):
They're trying to say
like, okay, we're gonna add
video. But people are notopening up that Spotify app on
their connected TV as much. Iknow Spotify says they're
getting a lot of consumptionthere, but not as much as they
are YouTube. And there's areason for that. It occupies a
space in the consumer's mind.
It occupies a space in theirhabits, which I think are also
(14:21):
underrated when we're talkingabout consumer behavior. The
podcast industry is ignoringthis at their peril. They are
misdiagnosing the opportunitiesand the threats, because they
Jeremy (14:35):
are
Justin (14:35):
misdiagnosing consumer
behavior. This is not just like
something that people areswitching to. It's like, oh, I
was an audio podcast listener,but now I'm a video podcast
watcher. I discovered podcastson YouTube, and now I watch
video podcasts on YouTube. Thereare so much more dynamics to
(14:56):
this that people are ignoring.
Yeah. Maybe I watch a podcast onYouTube. But then the next video
that gets recommended is not apodcast. You know? And then the
next five videos I watch are notpodcasts.
YouTube is an ecosystem all ontoits own. And it is just a
behemoth in terms of capturingconsumer attention in all sorts
(15:21):
of ways, in all sorts of modesof life, and at all sorts of
stages of development.Everything from young children,
to teenagers, to working adults,to retired baby boomers. They
have captured everybody'sattention in all sorts of ways.
And I think the podcast industrydoes need to take YouTube
(15:42):
seriously.
But I think they'remisdiagnosing like, the response
is, well, maybe we should dovideo in RSS. Maybe we should do
video in Spotify. Sure. Youshould do all that. But the
YouTube is so much bigger thanall of this.
Jeremy (15:59):
Yeah. You know, the your
description there at the start
just made me think very muchalong the same lines of
Instagram and many social mediaapps where there is a habit. And
I think about oftentimes whenI'm gonna sit down to eat dinner
if I'm on my own, and I'm like,oh, let's, like, watch
something. And immediately, I'mgoing to YouTube because I'm
like, I've got, like, ten tofifteen minutes. Podcasting is a
very active engagement andintentional platform about what
(16:20):
you're gonna listen to where yougo to YouTube to served
something.
Mhmm. I go to YouTube, and Ijust wanna see, tell me what to
watch. Like, win me over. Like,woo me on the home screen. And
there's always something elsescan through.
I'm like, ah, this is goodenough. And which is very
different than, like, I wannalisten to a podcast because I
like this host, and I wanna bein this mode right now. It's
like, give me something to passthe time. The job of of YouTube,
(16:41):
if we think about jobs to bedone, is like almost just help
me provide a background layerto, you know, whatever I'm doing
right now in a different waythan podcasting is, which is
usually more intentional. It'skind of like fill my time in
some way while I'm doingsomething boring, which again,
you
Charles Duhigg (16:55):
could say for
podcasting as well. But I think,
like, where we get
Jeremy (16:57):
into this Instagram kind
of territory in social media is
it's to that point where it'slike every spare second that you
have that is not engaged insomething, pull out your phone
and open up Instagram. It's nota habit. It's an addiction. And
I think that YouTube occupiesthat same space where it makes
me think of that life planningexercise where it's like, okay.
First, you gotta think about thebig rocks.
You put those in the bucket,then you pour the sand in, and
(17:18):
it fills up all the availablespace. YouTube is like the sand
that will find its way intoevery spare moment that you
have, and people treat it thatway. It's like, I'm bored. Turn
on YouTube. I'm standing in lineat the grocery store.
Maybe I go to Instagram. Maybe Ijust go to YouTube and watch
shorts and scroll through that.And so I think that that is not
something that podcasting cancompete with in the traditional
way. And it's something thatthere is just, like you said,
(17:39):
this user behavior that it'sbeyond choice. It's beyond even
habit.
It is just pure addiction thatlike people have been programmed
and conditioned to pull up theirphone, pull up the smart TV,
pull up their iPad, and, like,reach for that red YouTube
button. And, yeah, there is ahuge brand and platform pull.
Justin (17:57):
Yeah. And it's an
aggregator on a level we've
never seen before. It's like,this is why, you know, YouTube's
getting into podcasting. YouTubedoesn't care about podcasting.
YouTube is just saying, okay.
Well, this is a label that'shelpful. This is a type of
content that people wannaconsume on YouTube right
alongside how to videos, rightalongside full length stand up
(18:18):
comedy specials, right alongsidefull length documentaries, right
alongside traditional cablenews, which is now getting
broadcast to YouTube. Peoplecome to YouTube for full length
movies. People come to YouTubefor sports. People come to
YouTube for concerts, for musicvideos.
They got it all. And that's theterritory we're entering into as
(18:43):
podcasters and a podcastindustry. This is not our
kingdom. This is YouTube'skingdom. And podcasting is a
tiny little province in thatkingdom.
And it's just one piece of theiroverall empire. And until we
take that position seriously andrealistically, I don't think
(19:07):
we're going to be able toaddress the quote unquote threat
or quote unquote opportunity ofYouTube properly. Until we
really view this through thelens of consumer behavior and
how encompassing YouTube is inthat world. Like 98% of US
(19:32):
Internet users use it everymonth. This is insanity.
Like the truth is, there is aworld in which YouTube
encompasses every single type ofcontent you can consume. It gets
it all. And they serve all theads. And so what does the stand
(19:54):
up comedy special industry looklike if YouTube owns it all?
What does the podcastingindustry look like if YouTube
owns it all?
And again, the YouTube doesn'tcare about these as industries.
These are just keywords. Theseare just labels. These are
useful labels that consumersrecognize in the same way they
recognize comedy special andthey go, Oh, I know what that
(20:16):
is. That's what I want.
They see podcasting and they go,Oh, I know what that is. And
that's what I want. So yeah, Ithink our space has really
misdiagnosed what's happeninghere.
Jeremy (20:28):
It's almost like if
you're on the internet,
eventually all roads converge onYouTube in some way. It's like
Google and YouTube, obviouslylike one in the same at this
point in a little bit differentways. But it's like everything
leads you back there. And so itkind of feels, you know,
inescapable as a user of theinternet. And so I think that
that's why, you know, we'reseeing more podcasters starting
to adopt that.
(20:49):
And as creators, we are goingwhere the attention is. And so
if the audience is directingyour attention over here, it's
good marketing to say, well, Iguess I should be over there.
And this is anybody who's, youknow, sold cold water in like
the hot sun and a lineup outsidelike a football stadium or
something. It's like, there'sthe lineup of people in the sun.
Like, that's where you gotta beto sell that water rather than,
you know, somewhere else wherethere's no congregation of
people.
(21:09):
And so this makes a lot of sensewhy, you know, there's this
incentive for creators to go towhere the people are.
Justin (21:15):
I I think this is
underplayed, and that is that
creators are somewhat agnostic.Some creators are like, no, I'm
a podcaster. That's what I wantto do. I'm passionate about
podcasting. But most people whocreate content, they are
agnostic in the sense that theywill go wherever they're getting
the most attention.
This is why we're seeing thesebig movements. Right? This is
(21:37):
why it's sometimes hard to say,well, you know, all of a sudden,
podcasters are going to TikTok.It's like, well, some of those
are diehard podcasters, but abig number of those are just
creators. And they're just goingwherever they're gonna get the
attention.
Jeremy (21:52):
You know, we've talked
about this idea before of, like,
the units of availableattention. And you look at some
of this data and it's like,okay, there's more people
spending more time on not justvideo, but YouTube,
specifically. And so it's like,it makes sense to go there. If
you're creating something andyou wanna get it in front of
people, you can be a reallysmall player in a industry that
(22:12):
has momentum and build a vastlybigger business with arguably
less effort than being in asmall industry. There's not that
much kind of momentum behind it,not that much energy in it, but
you could be almost at the topof it, and you just cap out much
easier.
And I think the same kind ofdynamics are at play a little
bit here between these twomediums.
Justin (22:30):
Yeah. The way to think
about this is we often think
about total addressable marketas total number of consumers. I
think an even better way tothink about it is total
addressable market is the totalnumber of units of attention
that exist in a given day or agiven week or a given month. And
so if you aggregate everybody'sunits of attention, these hour
(22:52):
blocks, just imagine those. Howbig is that pie?
And where are consumers givingtheir units of attention? And
sometimes they they gotta givetheir units of attention to
driving, but then they can alsolisten to the radio or a podcast
or music. But Yep. When they gethome from work, they can watch
Netflix. They can watch cableTV.
They can listen to a podcast.They can listen to music. They
(23:14):
can listen to Vinyl. They canwatch a YouTube video. So we are
competing for units ofattention.
That's that's how it is. AndYep. There's only gonna be so
many units of attention left forpodcasting in general, and video
podcasting and audio podcastingas a part of that whole. Like,
this is a competition forattention and video is one way
(23:38):
to maybe grab people.
Jeremy (23:39):
Clearly, there's an
opportunity with video and
YouTube and potentially otherplatforms as well. But I think a
lot of times the question isalmost like, should I put my
podcast on YouTube? This is theone that I hear a lot, which
really oversimplifies what ittakes to actually make use of
YouTube. So it's really easynow. YouTube has made it
incredibly easy to submit yourRSS feed, and it will ingest
(24:01):
your episodes and it'll create alittle episode artwork for you.
So your podcast can be you know,in two clicks, you can have that
on YouTube. Your podcast canexist on YouTube, and you will
probably get zero utility out ofbeing on there. You might get a
handful of views here and there.But I think it's worth talking
about, like, what does itactually take to not just put
your podcast on YouTube, butactually use YouTube as a
(24:22):
platform either for discovery ofyour audio only podcast or as a
kind of means to an end in andof itself, where you're just you
want YouTube viewers. And, like,the podcast can be on YouTube.
People can watch that entirelyon YouTube. They may never need
to listen to the audio podcast,but that can still be useful to
your creative platform or yourbusiness. Mhmm. So I'd actually
be curious if you have a videopodcast that you think leverages
(24:44):
YouTube really well, and howwould you dissect what makes it
great on YouTube?
Justin (24:48):
I mean, yeah, there's
lots that come to mind.
Dignation is one that justrebooted. They were always video
first, even back in the iTunesdays. And so that's just baked
into their DNA. And they arejust two guys sitting on a couch
drinking beers.
But they managed to do that in acompelling way and build up an
(25:11):
audience for, you know, thatstyle. And most of their
consumption still happens invideo on YouTube now. But
previously, it was on iTunes.And I think they've leveraged
clips. They're investing heavilyin Instagram Reels.
And all of these things, intheir case, they are trying to
(25:33):
remind a nostalgic listener orviewer that they exist. So
they're just trying to goeverywhere, post these little
clips, and then for people togo, oh, I remember those guys. I
wanna and maybe recommend it toa friend like, oh, these guys
were the best back in the day.So they're taking these atomic
little units of video andcreating shorts, reels,
(25:57):
etcetera, and then posting thewhole episode to YouTube. And
it's done in a studio.
They have a camera operator.They have somebody, you know,
monitoring audio and all that.And they have the benefit of
this existing format and fanbase that they're tapping into.
Jeremy (26:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Here, you're
already, you know, getting into
the potential drawbacks, which Ithink we're gonna talk about in
a second of they've got astudio. They've got a camera
operator. They've got somebodymonitoring the audio.
Like, there is a higher level ofproduction quality with these
guys, and, like, we don't haveany
Charles Duhigg (26:25):
of that. We have
a show that
Jeremy (26:26):
is on YouTube. You
actually have two of them. Mhmm.
And so, like, that is notnecessary to do well on YouTube.
And we're actually gonna look ata couple other examples of
people, I think, who do wellwithout that.
But it's interesting. Like,we're having this debate about
where podcasting is going, butthen there's a conversation on
the YouTube side of things aboutYouTube is moving more and more
towards Hollywood where, like,production values are starting
to blend over. And I've heardsome interviews with Mark
(26:49):
Manson's talked about this acouple of times, and you look
at, like, what mister beast has,like, been doing for years now.
Mark Manson, I think he actuallyhired in ex Hollywood people,
producers, and things like thatto help work on his YouTube
channel. He ultimately found,like, they were too entrenched
in that system to understand thedigital side of things so much.
But it's interesting that youare getting these, like, big
people who have platforms, whohave budget, who are starting to
(27:11):
blend Hollywood and YouTube. Andso it's like, now podcasting is
coming in from the one side, andYouTube's already moving on to
even higher production quality.Mhmm. And that's not to say
that's what you need to do to besuccessful. You know, the more
the more niche your topic is,the lower the requirement is in
terms of quality.
But I think when you're lookingat the entertainment angle, that
is clearly going higherproduction quality, more TV,
(27:31):
more Hollywood influence.
Justin (27:32):
Yeah. There's this other
dynamic that people aren't
talking about, Which is one ofthe things that attracted
bloggers to podcasting, forexample, was that bloggers
realized that podcasting waslower effort and they got the
same amount of attention or evenmore attention. Because it's
(27:52):
hard to write a cohesivearticle. But if you're a thinker
or a debater or somebody that'sresearching things, for you to
just talk and interact with a cohost or a guest, that's a much
lower lift. And so we saw allthese people like Marco Arment,
who is a fairly famous bloggerin the tech sphere.
(28:13):
He's like, I'm just switching topodcasting because this is a
lower lift. Over on the YouTubeside, you have creators like
Logan Paul, like MrBeast, thathave one part of their business
that's expensive and high effortto create these YouTube videos.
But then they're realizing, oh,people like it when we just sit
(28:33):
on the couch with a couple ofShure SM7Bs just talk off the
top of our heads. And we gettons of views and revenue from
those videos. They're long.
You can monetize them over andover again. There's all sorts of
opportunities to put ads inthem. So they're realizing, oh,
this is a lower lift. That's thecompetition. The people on the
(28:55):
video side that were highproduction, more expensive,
whatever.
They're like, oh, wait, I canjust like sit down on a couch
and talk. That's who we'recompeting with. And they've got
nice cameras already from theirother activities. Right?
Jeremy (29:08):
Okay. So let's talk
maybe a little bit about, like,
how to leverage video in theideal scenario. Like, what does
it actually take to make use ofvideo to serve your podcast? And
like I kinda mentioned before, Ithink there's two ways to
approach this. You could doboth, but I think there's video
as a discovery channel for youraudio podcast.
So this is like social mediawhere you're gonna post video
content on YouTube and maybe onTikTok and Instagram and
(29:29):
elsewhere to create awareness ofthe show, but ultimately you're
trying to grow your audio onlypodcast. And then there's
creating a video podcast onYouTube that you don't really
care if people go to the audioside of things. So I'm curious,
let's start off with the videoas a discovery channel to use
for a audio only podcast. How doyou think people can leverage
that in a way that willeffectively grow their show?
Justin (29:49):
I mean, record all of
your episodes in video and
audio. And it has to be talkinghead. It can't just be these
audiograms. I've seen verylittle traction with those.
People want to see your face.
Humans have evolved to look athuman beings. And so it's got to
be actual recorded video. Andsome of these tools, like
Riverside, are now generating AIshort clips of what's most
(30:13):
interesting. And those can behelpful just to like go in there
quick. It's like, okay, here's aclip.
The other thing is to actuallyput the overlaid text on the
portrait style And export those,and then just start
experimenting with uploadingthem as YouTube Shorts and
uploading them as Reels andTikTok. Like, I would just
(30:35):
experiment and try this out. Andthen I think uploading full
length YouTube videos is alsosomething people should be
trying. I found just the unit ofa YouTube video is helpful for
promotion in certain cases. Sofor example, I just did this
interview with Taylor Otwell,and Caleb Porzio.
(30:57):
They're programmers in theLaravel community. There's a
Laravel subreddit. I could havetried posting a link to the
audio. But it won't actuallyembed the player. It's very
unlikely that people would thatwould grab people.
But posting the video intoReddit, it actually embeds the
video. People can watch it rightthere. And it got way more views
(31:21):
than we normally get on ourYouTube videos. So the unit of a
YouTube video is just moreshareable. You know, you share
it on Blue Sky, people can playthe video right there in Blue
Sky.
Share it on Reddit, you put itin a Medium post, a Substack
post. You put it in a you know,like, you can just post them
almost anywhere. And then Yep.There's some platforms like
(31:43):
LinkedIn and Spotify where youcan actually upload the video
there, the full length videothere as well, and it might do
well there as well. So that'show I'm thinking about it for
this new show I'm doing is yeah.
Let's get some clips for eachepisode. I will often tease
those out before we publish thefull length episode. And then
(32:04):
after we've published the fulllength episode, audio and video,
I will drip out these shorterclips everywhere that you can.
Jeremy (32:13):
One thing I think that
is interesting to think about
with the clips, I think thatwhen we're talking about
discoverability, I think thatthat is an important distinction
there is, like, one of thethings we wanna do with podcast
growth of any kind is get peoplejust to experience the show in
some way. And so it's like, whatis the lowest friction way to
get them to do that? Andprobably, you know, looking at a
(32:35):
sixty minute YouTube video, it'slike, maybe I'm gonna click play
on that. But if it's a thirtysecond short or something like
that, I'm much more likely to toclick play on that. And at least
now I'm into the show, I'mexperiencing it.
And I may not go and look up thepod audio podcast right now
after watching that short, but Imight watch another short. And
that might not be today. Thatmight be next week. But I was
like, oh, I like these shorts.And after a month, I might have
(32:57):
consumed 30 shorts.
And now I'm like, okay. I likethis show. I just haven't yet
gone over. It's like I'd madethe mental subscription almost
of like, okay. I like the show.
I'm subscribed to the ideasbehind the show. I'm subscribed
to these hosts. I am subscribedto the premise of the show. I
just haven't actually taken thephysical step of opening up my
podcast player and making thatsubscription. And so I think
(33:17):
this is, like, the sale beforethe sale kind of.
Mhmm. And so this is, I think,that's something we can look to
do with Shorts. And the the onething that I would caution
people with I talked to a clientyesterday who was using the
program OpusClip. This issimilar to, you know, what
Riverside's building in.Descript has something like this
where their AI pulls out clips.
(33:38):
I have never been satisfied withany of the clips that it has
pulled. This client, he was kindof like, you know, I did this. I
processed it, and it gave me,like, 15 clips in, like, three
minutes. Well, it's probablybetter having one really great
clip that maybe you've actuallydone some editing with than
having 15 clips that are, like,kind of, like, start not at the
perfect point of, like, enteringthe thought and didn't, like,
end on the perfect point. And soif I was gonna really take short
(34:00):
form clips seriously, I would bemanually doing that.
I would be finding the perfectclips that I think will do well
in short form. They're acomplete thought. I mean, maybe
they're a complete thought, butstill with a bit of an open loop
that makes you want to keeplistening, but you get something
valuable out of it. There's apayoff from listening to that
thing that is not just likesizzle. I think that's one of
the important things that thatpeople get wrong when they're
posting short form content isit's all sizzle.
(34:23):
It's all promo. There's noactual, oh, I'm glad I watched
that thing because I gotsomething in and of itself.
Justin (34:28):
Yeah. Like, you want
people to share it with a
friend. You you want it to beengaging enough that it's, like
you said, a complete thought.Just going back to something
else you said. I I think theadvantage of posting the full
length video is that YouTube asa platform does reward watch
time.
With the short form videos,people are just flipping through
(34:49):
those. The algorithm is servingup whatever channel has videos
that are engaging for thatparticular user. If you grab
them in a long form video andYep. You get them to watch five,
ten, fifteen, twenty minutes ofa one hour show, that's still
significant. And YouTube willstart to promote it.
(35:10):
YouTube will start to recommendit. And we know that there are
people sitting on their couchafter work who are looking for
that kind of long form content.Even from my own behavior, I've
started full length interviewson YouTube and then finished
them in audio format. If you'relooking to convert people to
audio listeners or tosubscribers even, long form has
(35:34):
its place. And if you can grabthem for a significant amount of
time, it reinforces thealgorithm and all that other
stuff.
So I think it's still worthdoing that as well.
Jeremy (35:44):
One other kind of hacky
thing that you can do on the
clips side of things to pullshort form is actually build
this into your episodestructure. And so you might
have, like, one question thatyou ask guests that's maybe a
little bit more sensational orprovocative. You might have a
pretty, like, grounded, like,nuanced interview, but you have,
like, one question, maybe it'stoward the end or something like
that, that you have designedthis thing to Mhmm. Be an
(36:06):
intended to do well in shortform. It's going to be a short
answer.
A short question fits intowhatever the time limits are,
and it is something that is alittle bit more maybe over the
top or like, you can't get intoa nuanced discussion usually in
sixty seconds. And so we'relooking for something that grabs
attention. And this could belike gamified segments. It could
be you could lean into humor.You could lean into kind of
surprise.
(36:27):
Like, it's it's thinking about,like, what are these stronger
emotions that we can elicit and,like, package up into this
little sixty second thing. And Ithink that you can structure
that. You can engineer that intoyour episode. And you could even
have a couple of those in like alightning round style question
or something like that at theend of the episode or or really
anywhere in the episode. And soI think that's another way to
make it easy to produce thatcontent without making your
(36:47):
workflow more complicated.
Justin (36:49):
Yeah. I think if you
wanna stand out, there are other
things you can do conceptuallywith video that like, most
people are just in a studio theway we are with these static
shots. But, you know, I've seenpeople do interviews on the
subway. I've seen people dointerviews while they're
walking. Like, they have acamera person and just a
microphone.
And they're, like, walking andtalking. There's other ways you
(37:11):
can stand out. And that is partof the game. Like, you're trying
to figure out in a sea of peoplewho have these static shots with
Shure SM7Bs in front of theirface
Charles Duhigg (37:21):
Yep.
Justin (37:22):
How are you gonna, like,
be different and grab people's
attention? So you gotta startthinking creatively, I think.
Jeremy (37:29):
So there's actually
we're gonna talk here about,
like, what about the otherapproach of using YouTube as an
end unto itself, looking tobuild your audience there. But
there's actually one approachthat kind of bridges the two,
which is more creating notpodcast episodes and putting
them up up on YouTube, butcreating, like, video first,
YouTube first videos that don'tbelong on the podcast feed.
They're kind of traditionalYouTube style videos. And this
(37:51):
is something that I see a lot ofpodcasters actually doing.
Justin (37:54):
Mhmm.
Jeremy (37:54):
They're doing both
podcasting and pure YouTube
content. Mark Asquith fromCaptivate did an experiment, and
they basically published similarcontent in podcast form,
audiogram form, custom YouTubeform that was, like, a ten
minute video, whereas thetypical podcast interview was
like sixty minutes. Mhmm. And itwas just overwhelming that the
thing that did best on YouTubewas the YouTube specific video.
(38:16):
That was like the ten minutesummation, really actionable,
highly scripted, engaging videocontent.
And, you know, that kind ofmakes intuitive sense. YouTube
has maybe changed thatpodcasting is more popular now,
so maybe I think podcasting hasmore of a chance. But I'm
curious, like, you do videos fortransistor and for yourself that
are not podcast. They're YouTubespecific. What's your take on,
like, podcasts on YouTube versusYouTube first content?
Justin (38:40):
Yeah. I mean, there's so
many there's lots to unpack
here. In general, I've foundthat scripted podcast content
sounds better as audio than itdoes as works as video. Like,
video exposes kinda how jiltedand awkward it is. I mean, in
(39:02):
some ways, it is nice to be ableto, like, say, you know what?
I'm just making this forYouTube. I'm crafting this for a
viewer in a specific context,and I'm just going to make the
best version of that thing. Anddepending on the mindset you
bring to something, if you're,like, really have an audio first
mentality, but you're justrecording the video, that will
(39:24):
affect your output as opposed tobeing like and I think you can
have both in mind. And so I amseeing creators, and I think
we're in this bucket, and youget better at it over time where
we are simultaneously creatingvideo and audio content. And it
can be compelling in bothformats.
(39:45):
You have to kind of like massagethings as you're going along.
You have to get better at it asa medium. It's also, what are
you trying to accomplish here?Like, if all you're trying to
accomplish is attention, which Iknow is like kind of the base
desire of a podcast creator is Ijust want the attention. I want
(40:06):
the views.
I want the streams. I want thedownloads. Yes. But eventually,
you have to look at what am Iultimately trying to achieve
here. And Right.
Ultimately, you might be tryingto achieve discussion. And that
we get back to that idea ofresponse rate. So I want to see
comments. I want to see emailsin my inbox. I want to see
(40:27):
thoughtful replies.
Okay. Well, that's just onelevel up from attention. Right?
And if your YouTube videos areconstantly generating just
garbage interaction that youdon't appreciate, but your pod
audio podcast is garneringthoughtful email replies, then,
you know, you've got youranswer. But then, you know, for
(40:49):
a lot of people listening to theshow, there's even another thing
they're trying to achieve, whichis sales, revenue, etcetera.
And if a YouTube video isgenerating more of what you
want, then absolutely, youshould just you don't need to
call yourself a podcaster. Justmake YouTube videos and do that
(41:09):
thing. So that's how I would beevaluating these is like, what
kind of first order, secondorder effects are you trying to
generate from this content?
Jeremy (41:21):
We're gonna actually
come back to this in a later
episode this season, but one ofour longtime listeners, Philip
Pape of Wits and Waits, he wasactually the first podcast roast
that we did in, our other show,Roast My Podcast. He emailed me
this past week, And in response,he was asking some questions
about if we're gonna focus moreon, like, industry and niche
specific trends beyondpodcasting as a whole. So we're
(41:42):
gonna do an episode on thatlater in the season, but I had a
little bit of an email back andforth with him. And he was
saying that basically he hasexperienced exactly what you
just mentioned, where he saidthe viewers on YouTube, he has a
fitness podcast. They're overlyaggressive, overly bro y, and
they don't really wanna takeaction.
And they're really quick tocritique, and they're just like
bad fans. And so they'll watchhis content, but they are not
(42:03):
his ideal customers or clients.They are not people he even
really wants in his audience orlife. And so he's actually
scaled back his YouTube videos,which he was gaining traction
on. And he was actuallymentioning, yeah, I think I
might just stop doing YouTubeentirely because it's the
podcast listeners who are likethe thoughtful ones, the nuanced
ones, the people who become mybest clients.
And so it's kind of like he'sgetting this attention over
here, but it's not actuallydoing anything for him.
(42:24):
Arguably, it's making his lifeworse because it's building it
up with this negativity. Whereashe has this other audience,
exact same content, but thepodcast listeners are different
in some way, and they're lookingfor something different. They're
engaging with a differentplatform, And those are more of
the people that he wants moreof. He may be able to put more
time into the audio podcast,which then actually, you know,
serves the business better aswell.
Justin (42:42):
Yeah. And the other
thing I'll say about any kind of
example of results, the resultsthat get talked about are these
short term snapshot of like, Idid this. Like, I started
posting on YouTube and I gotthis kind of engagement.
Engagement is just a veryfragile metric. It's somewhat
(43:03):
helpful.
But I would also encouragepeople to expand their window in
terms of how they evaluatethings. And again, in my case,
with this business I'm runningright now. You know, I started
podcasting in 2012. I still havepeople signing up as customers
(43:24):
that say, I listened to thatfirst show you did back in 2012,
and I've just been a fan eversince. And I know that you have
this software product.
And so when it came time for usto choose, I chose you. That's a
long term view. And because I'vebeen around now for, you know, a
couple decades in terms ofmaking content, I can see the
(43:48):
long term ramifications, howthese things kind of add up over
time. And I will say these shortterm wins, these marketing
hacks, these growth hacks, theseI switched to TikTok and I got
5,000,000 views. They have notproduced as much value over a
long term as long formpodcasting and blogging has for
(44:12):
me.
Anytime you see results, peoplesharing, I'm switching from
podcasting to YouTube becauseYouTube's killing it for me. I
would just wait and see. Youknow? Wait and see how that
works out for them. Over a longperiod of time, I personally am
an advocate for long form slowmedia, as I call it.
Jeremy (44:38):
Yeah. And I think for
anybody who is wanting to go
deeper on that, check out ourepisode from season one on the
10 k timeline. I believe theepisode title is looking at how
long it takes to get to 10,000subscribers based on the data in
the podcast marketing trendsreport, but, there's also some
nuanced in-depth conversationsabout longevity as a creator as
well. So, a good resource there.Okay.
(44:58):
So we've talked about kind ofusing video as a acquisition
channel for audio podcasts andleveraging YouTube a little bit
more broadly to get exposure andattention. I think the one thing
that most people are thinkingabout here when it comes to
video podcasting is actuallyvideo podcasting is putting full
video episodes up on YouTube.And I have two kind of like case
studies here that offer twodifferent approaches. And the
(45:22):
first is our friend of the show,Jay Klaus of Creator Science.
And he is the first person Ithink of as somebody who has
really taken YouTube seriouslyas a podcaster.
And there's a lot of peoplewho've done this well, but I
think he is is somebody whostarted out with a very great
audio first podcast and thenmade this pivot to video. And he
is not so over the top asDignation where he's got a
(45:44):
studio and he's got, you know,producers and all this this team
there. Mhmm. But it isinteresting to see basically,
now he's at a 21,000subscribers. So in podcast
terms, that's incrediblenumbers.
In YouTube terms, that's likemiddling. It's like solid, but
it's not incredible in terms ofYouTube. Mhmm. But to get there,
(46:05):
right now, he's produced 61video podcast episodes. And some
of these, I believe, were lowerproduction before he officially
went to video.
They put those up after thefact. And then he's done 90
other videos, in terms of, like,shorts and kind of other YouTube
first content. And so he's gotaround, you know, a 50 videos
total. So he's he's certainlyput some output into YouTube.
And also, I know that he saidthat he has invested over a
(46:28):
hundred grand, I think, in thefirst year of video.
And so part of this was studiobuild out. A lot of this was
hiring on his producer, Connor.He hired a video thumbnail
artist, and he had some someother staff, and he was
basically hiring both a videoproducer and editor and a audio
engineer for the podcastversion. And so there was a huge
amount of both time andfinancial investment into
(46:50):
YouTube, and that was the firstyear, a hundred k. And
basically, it took 48 episodesthat were, like, really great
episodes before one really tookoff.
And so he was getting maybe,like, a couple thousand views
per per episode, something that,like, for the production quality
he was doing does not seem toyou know, he seems like he
should be getting moreattention. And then one took
off. It was his episode with, Ithink, Jenny Hoyos is her name.
(47:12):
I think now it's at somethinglike almost 4,000,000 views.
Mhmm.
And that then just blew up thechannel. And so he was
basically, you know, taking outall these lottery tickets. Every
episode is like another chanceto hit the algorithm. And I know
from his kind of conversationswith him and a lot of, like,
stuff that he was sharingpublicly, he was really
frustrated that he was puttingtime, money, and like effort
into doing YouTube for a yearbefore there was any kind of
(47:33):
like reward of that. And I thinkit's even taken him another year
since that to kind of evenrecoup the costs that he's put
into it.
So Yeah. This is like one routethat you can take, which is
really doing this, going all outon video, but this is not really
an approach that is doable foreveryone.
Justin (47:50):
Yeah. And and also look
at his business. His business is
serving creators. A big part ofthat group is on Instagram,
making photos or videos onYouTube. In terms of his market,
it makes sense that, you know,people are gonna watch these
videos and then potentiallyconvert to customer.
Right? So Yeah. In his case, itmakes sense. If you have a
(48:13):
different business that, youknow, you're trying to convert
people to customers, it mightnot work for you. Like, it might
not be the best approach.
Jeremy (48:19):
Yeah. And I think, you
know, there's some other
interesting things from hisstory. Like, if you look at his
most watched videos, they alltend to be on YouTube creation.
And so a lot of YouTube creatorsare watching YouTube, and he has
a bunch of videos that are ondoing better at YouTube. And
those tend to be all of hisvideos that have over, like, a
hundred k views.
Mhmm. And he's got that one withover a million now up to almost
4,000,000. But then a lot of thevideos are just like a few
(48:41):
thousand, which, you know, inpodcast terms, like, if you have
a few thousand downloads anepisode, you're like top 1%
show. Mhmm. Whereas on YouTube,like, that's almost nothing.
Mhmm. And so that goes backagain to the potential of
YouTube that there is this bigpool, this big pie to tap into.
But they have started with theircontent strategy saying some
episodes we're just not gonnaput the cost and the expense and
(49:01):
effort into creating for YouTubebecause we know this is gonna be
a great audio podcast episode,but it's not worth us investing
in doing YouTube well. And sowe're just not even gonna make a
video on that. And I think thatthat's an interesting kind of
hybrid approach too, where,like, the podcast is this
consistent thing that everythinggoes on the podcast, but only
selective videos go on YouTube.
Like, can be certain episodesthat you think this has a great
(49:22):
hook to it. And I think there'smaybe search potential here. But
that's maybe once a month I dothat. And this is another
approach that creators can take.
Justin (49:30):
Yeah. I like this
approach. And, again, some
people love this stuff. Like, Ilike being on camera. I I like
it.
I like also being on themicrophone. You know, there are
times where I just wanna recordan audio only episode and not
worry about video. Yeah. Andthere's times I'm like super
excited to get on camera. So ifyou like this stuff, if you
(49:50):
wanna get some equipment, andset up a little studio in your
house, all of this is fun.
It can cost a lot of money.Especially in terms of editing
time. We've talked about thisbefore, I think. But editing an
audio episode as opposed to avideo episode is just like way
way different. To the pointwhere, like for my other show,
all I'm getting the editor to dois like take the Riverside
(50:12):
video, clip it a little bit, andthen export that.
That's what goes to YouTube. Andthen the audio editor is
spending way more time on theaudio version of that show.
Really finessing it. Reallymaking it great. So for us, the
premier version of our show isaudio and the raw version is
(50:33):
video.
Jeremy (50:34):
And I think that, you
know, when it comes to video is
both more difficult to edit. Andif you edit a video the way that
you edit a podcast, cutting outevery and ah, not that everybody
does but it is just verynoticeable and jarring. And so
it takes more to make it feelnatural. Because obviously
playing with different if you'rescreen sharing or have different
visuals, that's not necessary byany means. We don't have a ton
(50:55):
of that with our show.
Yeah. But also, we don't getmillions of views or tens of
thousands or hundreds ofthousands. So there is this kind
of like, if you really want tocapitalize on YouTube, it's
going to require you to put moreeffort into your visual
production from everything fromthe camera that you use and the
setup that in terms of, like,backgrounds and visuals and
video production. And so you cando this on a budget, and you can
(51:17):
expect to get, you know, maybesome lift to your existing kind
of audience awareness and andpodcast growth or YouTube
channel growth. But I think ifyou really wanna play the
YouTube game, you have to bewilling to invest time and money
and energy into, you know,really doing it well.
And so I think that that'ssomething that is not really
talked about a lot when in thisconversation of should I be
(51:38):
leveraging YouTube? It's like,okay, well, what are your
expectations and what are youwilling to do? And like those
need to be in alignment.
Justin (51:44):
Yeah. Yeah. I totally
agree.
Jeremy (51:46):
Okay. So the second case
study that I wanna bring up here
is a guy named Chris Stone. Hehas a fantastic newsletter
called Podcast Strategy Weekly,and he talks a lot about the
YouTube side of things. And sohe works for a company called
The New Statesman. It's a in TheUK, it's kind of a news based
YouTube channel and and mediacompany.
And he produces a number ofshows. He's grown a bunch of
their shows. And one of hisapproaches that I've been
(52:07):
reading a bunch of his blogs onYouTube and what they do for the
new statesman, his advice isbasically you have your, let's
say forty five, sixty minutepodcast episode, do not upload
that to YouTube, but actuallytake each talking point within
it and upload it as its ownvideo. And so you might take one
episode that turns into fourYouTube videos and each of them
has its own title that isspecific to this talking point
(52:29):
in the episode. It has its owncover art, and that has actually
worked a lot better to grow theYouTube channel.
But it's a very differentexperience. It is no longer, I
would even say, a podcast atthat point. Like, it's the
output of a podcast, but it'snot the same experience as what
you would get from listening tothe full interview.
Justin (52:45):
Yeah. I like this
actually. I've done this myself.
On my personal YouTube channel,I just did a video on AI and
whether it's going to takeprogrammers jobs. And I used as
source material a series ofpodcast conversations I'd had.
So I was just taking clips fromthose conversations and using
them as reference throughout.And it definitely makes the
(53:07):
video more engaging. But thevideo was constructed as a
YouTube video. And so this canbe a part of your overall
content strategy is to say, youknow, the podcast is where we
generate these long formconversations that have all
these tidbits. And we can clipthose up and make them shorts,
or we can take a bunch of thatmaterial and then craft it into
(53:30):
its own narrative as astandalone YouTube video,
documentary, whatever you wantto do with it.
I think it's a great approach.Podcasts are great at generating
these kind of zeitgeistythoughts and potent little bits
of content. And so, yeah, toaccumulate those and to bookmark
(53:53):
them and file them away in a waythat's useful is totally worth
doing, I think.
Jeremy (53:58):
Yeah. And you know, it's
got me thinking I'm a classic,
like, all or nothing. I wanna goa % or zero. And I also wanna
always create something new.Like, as a creative person, I
get bored with something I'vealready created.
I never wanna talk about itagain. I'm like, okay. Did that.
Like, let's move on to the nextthing. But it's got me thinking
about, you know, our we're gonnahave two seasons of this show
now, and we'll do more in thefuture.
(54:19):
And, essentially, our currentproduction flow is we do a
couple months of episodes. Maybeit'll be two or three months,
and then we're gonna have ninemonths off, which is a huge
break. And we, you know, mightdo our other show or do other
content in the meantime. Butthinking about all the stuff
that we talk about everyepisode, usually we have two to
three segments that are theirown standalone talking points,
potentially even more than that,that between seasons, it would
(54:41):
make a lot of sense to go backand publish, clip those out, and
make them their own kind ofspecific YouTube videos. And I
think something in me as acreator, and I think a lot of
creators have this feeling whereyou almost feel like you're
gonna get caught or somethingwhere it's like, oh, you already
did that.
You're you're republishing that.And I think that's why a lot of
us don't rebroadcast emailswe've sent before or republish
podcast episodes we've sentbefore. But I think with YouTube
(55:04):
in particular, most people whocome across your content are
going to be new discovering itfor the first time. And so I
think there's even moreincentive to do it here almost
more than any other platform. Ithink talking myself into doing
this right now, going backthrough season one, season two
episodes once the season is overand actually pulling out, like,
you know, eight to fourteenminute episodes or or videos
(55:24):
from each episode and thenpackaging those as their own
standalone videos.
Justin (55:28):
Yeah. And if anyone's
out there and they're provider,
there is this opportunity forsomeone to mine those for clips
that can be constructed intovideos. And I think there's just
like this huge opportunity.There's all this material that
just needs to be finessed andused into like standalone units
(55:49):
of content.
Jeremy (55:50):
So this actually gets
into I mentioned here how, you
know, you're taking this podcastepisode, you chop it up into
these individual videos, whichare not shorts, but they're
their own standard videos onYouTube. And this begins to feel
less like a podcast, whichactually leads us into the final
thing that I wanna talk abouthere, which you actually
referenced earlier. What does itmean to be a podcaster? And, I
mean, there's this wholeconversation happening in the
(56:11):
industry of, like, what ispodcast anymore? And you've got
some people saying, well, if itdoesn't have an RSS feed, it's
not a podcast.
My take is that consumers willdecide how terminology gets
used. And right now, you have alot of people who listen to
podcasts or watch podcasts whothey are totally they have never
listened to an RSS based podcastin the world. And I would say
maybe even we're gonna get to apoint if it's not there already
(56:33):
where most people who have wouldterm themselves podcast
listeners, it's detached fromaudio only and detached from
RSS. And so I think that thisthis word podcasting is
changing, and I also think thatit can be a limiting thing to
creators to only think ofthemselves as single platform
creators. What are your kind ofthoughts on that as somebody
who's obviously done tons ofcontent and businesses
(56:53):
throughout the years?
Justin (56:54):
Yeah. Let me separate
this into two kind of
categories, two differentthoughts. On one hand, if you
are creating content for anaudience, you are just trying to
get their units of attention.However you do that in a way
that fits your morals and yourethics and the things you're
good at and your skills andaligns with the outcomes you
(57:16):
want, you should pursue that.And the label matters less.
Labels from the consumerperspective are only helpful in
that sometimes people arelooking for the Logan Paul
podcast. Like, they want thatversion of Logan Paul. I don't
know why you'd want any versionof Logan Paul. But, you know,
(57:38):
they want that version of LoganPaul. On the other side, the
medium does matter in waysbecause the medium is the
message.
The message is the medium. Ashow that is RSS based just has
some characteristics that aremeaningful, both for consumers
and for creators. For consumers,like I said, I think long form
(58:00):
media, there's something specialabout it. And also media that
allows you to listen whileyou're doing something else. It
engenders a different mode ofattention.
It engenders a differentrelationship with the creator.
There's a lot of dynamics therebetween the consumer and the
(58:23):
creator that I think areimportant. On the creator's
side, there is also this ideathat video has become
centralized. And it'scentralized on Spotify. It's
centralized on YouTube.
It's centralized on TikTok. Andyou are going to be a servant to
that algorithm. That's just avery different mode than these
(58:46):
long form mediums like bloggingand podcasting and writing
books. That's how I think aboutit in these two categories. So
on one hand, yes.
You know what? Produce thecontent that is getting you the
attention you desire. On theother hand, you want to also
consider the other attributes ofthese different mediums. What
(59:06):
they require of you as acreator, the effect they have on
consumers in terms of addictionand other things. And also
owning your RSS feed is there'ssomething unique about that,
that you don't get with, youknow, uploading your videos to
YouTube.
If all of those platforms died,or shut you out, people could
(59:30):
still find your RSS feed andlisten to your audio. And I
think there's somethingsignificant about that.
Jeremy (59:37):
My perspective on the
from the consumer angle is that
podcasting is a category ofcontent. And for anybody who has
not read April Dunford's book,obviously awesome, it's a book
about positioning, and it'swritten for businesses, but
positioning matters for anythingyou create that you are trying
to get people to pay attentionto and help them choose from a
competitive field of options.One of the big things that she
(59:59):
talks about in the book is thatchoosing your category
automatically seeds a set ofassumptions and expectations and
even competitors. And so whensomebody thinks about a podcast,
now they are comparing among acertain kind of selection of
things. And so I think thatpodcasting is a useful phrase on
the consumer side and on thecreator side to be able to
understand what do people wholisten to podcasts expect from a
(01:00:21):
podcast and let's try and matchsomething with that because
we're probably not gonna be ableto do a great job of convincing
people who think of themselvesas non podcast listeners.
That's something that can happenover time. That's really heavy
lifting marketing. It's wayeasier to align with people who
identify with podcast listenersand think, okay, what is a
podcast? And it's not going tobe a consumer is not gonna say,
(01:00:41):
well, has to have an RSS feed.Mhmm.
They may be able to find it intheir podcast app, but they also
may be able to find itelsewhere. But I'm guessing it's
more of an experience, aspecific type of content
experience that they go topodcasting to get. And this is
something that we talked aboutin the algorithms episode as
well. Mhmm. And so I think thatthat is is one of the areas
where it is helpful both on theconsumer and the podcast side to
keep this term.
(01:01:02):
It's a term that's going toevolve as podcasting evolves and
as content evolves. But on theother side of things, on the,
like, self identity side ofthings, I think this is an
interesting area to dig intowhere self identity can be such
a powerful influence both forgood and for bad. Mhmm. And I
think that it's important toconsider, like, how you identify
(01:01:24):
and if that is holding you backin some ways. I've created many
podcasts.
I have zero identity as apodcaster. If anything, I think
of myself most as a writer,maybe an entrepreneur, but each
of these comes with connotationsthat I don't always like because
of how they're marketed andthings like that. I think of
myself almost as a writer whopodcasts and does other things
and creates products. AustinKleon, he introduced himself as
(01:01:45):
a writer who draws, which I Ialways thought, ah, that's such
an interesting, like, way ofpresenting himself. Because,
like, he is kind of an artist.
He's also a writer. He also doesall this other creative stuff.
And so I personally likeadopting an identity that is not
tied to one medium Mhmm. That isexpansive, that allows me to
dabble in a bunch of differentareas and not feel like, oh, I
am this thing, and so I'm onlygonna do this thing, and I'm not
(01:02:05):
gonna do anything else. It canbe a powerful thing to adopt an
identity of I'm a person whodoes this thing really well.
I think for me, being a writercarries a lot of positive
connotations that I feel like Iwant to aspire to and live up
to. Whereas, you know, otherthings, I'm like, yeah. I don't
really feel that that is not theNorth Star that I want, and so
I'm not gonna hold that identitytoo closely.
Justin (01:02:22):
Yeah. I'm just an
attention seeker.
Jeremy (01:02:26):
Perfect. Alright. So to
close this one out here, we
actually had, one of ourlongtime listeners, Barrett
Young. He has a show called TheArt of Succession. He actually
launched the show afterlistening to season one of
podcast marketing trendsexplained and commented on many
of our videos.
One of our most loyal listeners,he actually, I believe, became a
transistor customer, afterlistening to our show as well.
So, great data point there onthe, the value of YouTube. He
(01:02:47):
discovered us through YouTube,became a customer of
transistors. Interesting. Yeah.
Discoverability, customeracquisition.
Justin (01:02:52):
I like it.
Jeremy (01:02:53):
He sent over some data.
He commented on one of our
previous episodes and said thathe's been experimenting with
both audio podcasting andYouTube. And he had a little
interesting experiment that heran that actually ties into
something we talked about here.For the kind of overview here,
he's got sixty minute podcastepisodes. He releases two
episodes a month.
He also releases custom YouTubeburst videos twice a month, and
(01:03:14):
he does his show in seasons. So12 episode seasons. He's
currently got a small showaround 50 views an episode on
the YouTube videos, around 22downloads an episode on the
audio. So pretty small showright now. But what he did for
season one, he published thefull versions of the episodes on
YouTube, the full sixty minuteepisodes.
And then on season two, hestarted cutting them in half and
(01:03:37):
turning every episode into twovideos on YouTube. And he
basically his retention ratejust, like, went through the
roof here. And so, basically,his total watch hours are three
to four times greater than lastseason with a 20 to 30 retention
rate versus less than 10%retention rate. So an
interesting kind of data pointthat, I'm really glad that he
(01:03:58):
reached out and shared this withus. And so that kind of is
another tick in the box in favorof maybe it's not worth putting
the full podcast episode up onYouTube, but actually chopping
it up into other videos.
And, yeah. I don't know if youhave thoughts on, like, this
this data that he shared withus.
Justin (01:04:11):
Yeah. As a content
creator, I think you should be
running experiments. One thingis to not have too short of a
window. Like, anything youstart, whether it's a new blog,
a new YouTube channel, a newpodcast, or all three
simultaneously, it's gonna taketime to get better at it. It's
gonna get take time for peopleto notice your show.
It's gonna take time for peopleto care. It takes time. So
(01:04:34):
publish, you know, a hundredtimes, and then decide if it was
worth it. This is great. I thinkthis is great.
And I would keep doing that. Theone thing that you absolutely
should try to do is create alistener survey or a viewer
survey, and put it in everyepisode, and just see what data
(01:04:55):
comes in. And you might only getone or two responses every
couple months. But my guess is,what you're trying to do is
figure out who are these people?How are they consuming this?
What job is this doing in theirlives? And I think you're going
to see some meaningfuldifferences. For example,
someone who chooses to listen toyour podcast episode before they
(01:05:18):
get in the car to drive to work.They are locked in for thirty
minutes. As opposed to cominghome from work, sitting on the
couch, and they have a world ofentertainment to choose from.
Are they going to bounce offyour video? And so you might
want to start surveying yourlisteners and viewers, and then
start targeting the job to starttargeting the mode that works
(01:05:42):
for what you're trying toaccomplish.
Jeremy (01:05:44):
Yeah. And you know, this
is something that we didn't
really mention here. Think we'dmentioned it before. Like,
YouTube, it's a double edgedsword where it is great for
discoverability because YouTubedoes such a good job
recommending engaging videos toeach user, but it is actively
working against you in manycases as well, where somebody's
watching your video, but in thesidebar, YouTube is now
recommending other videos. Andso you do see this behavior is
(01:06:07):
different where YouTube tends toget very short average view
duration compared to podcasting,where on a sixty minute video, a
really, really good sixty minutepodcast video might get think
you had one recently that waslike eighteen minutes Mhmm.
Average view duration, whichthat's like almost unheard of.
Like, I would expect more likeeight to nine minutes. Whereas a
podcast episode, you might getforty minutes average view
(01:06:27):
duration or average listenduration Mhmm. Or 50 even. And
so I think that that's somethingwhere it is a different
environment.
You're gonna have lower hoursconsumed. Although, as as
Barrett kinda showed here, thisis an interesting way to to
think about it where it's like,actually, what if we chop that
up? And, you know, it makessense that he's getting more
views now in season two, whichis because he's basically
doubled his video output byturning every video into two.
(01:06:49):
And the only thing I can thinkof here is that there's some
kind of sunk cost thing going onwhere you get like seven minutes
into a fifteen minute video andyou're like, well, I'm already
halfway through. It's only sevenmore minutes.
So you push through. Whereas youget seven minutes into a sixty
minute video and you're like,well, there's no way I'm
watching another fifty threeminutes, so I'm gonna bounce.
Yeah. And so I think that, youknow, there is something to
that, that it actually does makelogical sense that shorter
(01:07:11):
videos, can actually increaseoverall consumption time on the
channel, if not in and maybeeven also in individual videos.
Justin (01:07:18):
Yeah. You referenced
that video I had. So it got
2,000 almost 2,300 views, andthe average view duration was
eighteen minutes. This is a onehour episode.
Jeremy (01:07:28):
Yeah.
Justin (01:07:29):
Over on Apple Podcasts,
that same one hour and eighteen
minute episode has an averageconsumption of nearly 80%. Mhmm.
So way more. People arelistening to about really about
an hour of the episode on ApplePodcasts as opposed to eighteen
minutes. Now and that eighteenminutes is great for YouTube.
(01:07:52):
But this is why what mode do youwant people in? Like, do you
want them engaged? They're outfor a walk with the dog, and
they're just listening to onething for that whole time? Even
watch people watch YouTube. Assoon as things get slow, they
open their phone and they'redoing other things.
So there's just Yeah. Thinkabout this stuff. You know, look
at your stats. It's like, okay.Well, we had 763 audio downloads
(01:08:16):
for that episode, 2,300 YouTubeviews.
But then go into Spotifyanalytics or Apple podcast
analytics and go, okay. Well,but what's the consumption? And
Yeah. You're making an hour ashow that's longer than an hour
and people are listening to 80of it? Mhmm.
That's like hitting a home run.Yeah. You're killing it. And so
(01:08:38):
what kind of attention do youwant as a creator?